Is Science a Social Construct?

BIBLIOGRAPHY IS PINNED TO THE TOP OF THE COMMENTS SECTION.
The New Lysenkoists:
• The New Lysenkoists
The Science Wars:
• The Science Wars
In this video, we’ll be reviewing, in some detail, what it is that social constructionists believe about science, and why you should be skeptical of their claims. Along the way, we’ll learn a bit about the philosophy of science and how it all works.
All networks were generated with MATLAB and were subsequently altered in MS Paint.
This was an extraordinarily difficult video to make, having been released a full two months after I’d intended to finish it. So please show some love and pass this around far and wide. It also wouldn’t hurt if you’d @neildegrassetyson about this video on Twitter ;)
[Note 1] This is why I disagree with the notion of incommensurability; it implies that old paradigms are incomprehensible in terms of the new ones, which I disagree with. Were that the case, however, one could reasonably argue (as some, like Feyerabend, did) that there is no such thing as scientific progress; we don’t really discover anything, but only find new ways to describe things.
Needless to say, I think that this is nonsense, and the superior predictive power of new paradigms, coupled to their ability to explain everything that the old paradigms could explain, is very strong evidence that scientific progress is NOT an illusion and (slightly more controversially) that scientific constructs do indeed represent something external to our minds.
In any event, here are a couple of links which demonstrate the derivations alluded to in the video:
From Einstein’s Field Equation to Poisson’s Equation for Gravity:
www.zweigmedia...
From the Schrodinger Equation to Newton’s 2nd Law:
www.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DOfg4tDmyVvM&usg=AOvVaw164vv0JzbXvLirV_JeuOU1
[Note 2] There is no dispute over whether social values have some influence over which sciences are pursued, and to what extent they are funded. The dispute is over whether there exist values and/or interests that are unique to particular demographics, which then play a role in theory selection and/or construction. That scientific theories are constructed is not what is presently under dispute; the question is whether they are constructed from facts in order to maximize their predictive power, or whether they are SOCIALLY constructed from both facts AND socially-specific values for the purpose of legitimating the social perspectives associated with those values.
[Note 3] This is called a Motte and Bailey. It’s a specific type of bait-and-switch style of argumentation that is endemic to social constructionists. I advise you to familiarize yourself with it:
rationalwiki.o...
[Note 4] “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it”
-Karl Marx
en.wikipedia.o...
[Note 5] This webpage abuses the work of Kuhn in the exact same manner that social constructionists do; reading through it shall no doubt prove illuminating.
www.ideacenter....
FURTHER READING:
sociology.irese...
ERRATA
1) Footnote [51] is accidentally listed twice. The second one corresponds to footnote [52] in the bibliography.
2) Bruno Latour is mispronounced here as "Bruno Latoy." It is actually pronounced the way it's spelled.
3) In addition to the 3 proposed operational criteria (predictive accuracy, explanatory efficiency, and optimal flexibility) for aiding in the decision between competing underdetermined models, I would like to amend it with a fourth, long-overdue criterion: rational coherence, which is defined here as that property whereby the propositions which constitute a theory do not contradict one another.
4) (to be added if additional revisions are warranted)
Patreon: www.patreon.co...
Crocoduck Vlogs: / @crocoduckvlogs4104

[@KingCrocoduck]

BIBLIOGRAPHY: [1] The SJWiki entry on “Neurosexism” [read: “bourgeouis science”] sjwiki.org/wiki/Neurosexism [2] The Stanford Online Encyclopedia’s entry on feminist epistemology plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-epistemology/ [3] “Knowing Home: Braiding Indigenous Science with Western Science- Chapter 1” pressbooks.bccampus.ca/knowinghome/chapter/chapter-1/ [4] UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Sexual Culture: “QUEERING AGRICULTURE: FOOD SECURITY IN THE NATION’S CAPITAL AND THE CRISES OF REPRODUCTIVE AMERICAN FAMILISM” cssc.berkeley.edu/events/event/queering-agriculture-food-security-in-the-nations-capital-and-the-crises-of-reproductive-american-familism/ [5] Harding, Sandra G. Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?. Ithaca: Cornell U, 1991. Print. pg 10 [6] UC Davis Majors: Science and Technology Studies www.ucdavis.edu/majors/science-and-technology-studies/ [7] Hayles, Katherine. "Gender encoding in fluid mechanics: masculine channels and feminine flows". Differences: a journal of feminist cultural studies (1992). 4 (2), 16 - 44. [8] Longino Helen E. "Can There Be A Feminist Science?". (1987). Hypatia 2 (3): pg 51 [9] Giordano, Sara. "Those who can’t, teach: critical science literacy as a queer science of failure". Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience (2017). v. 3, n. 1. [10] National Review: “New High-School Physics Curriculum Includes Lessons on White Privilege” www.nationalreview.com/article/398709/new-high-school-physics-curriculum-includes-lessons-white-privilege-katherine-timpf [11] Indigenous Science Declaration, page 3 www.esf.edu/indigenous-science-letter/Indigenous_Science_Declaration.pdf [12] Longino Helen E. "Can There Be A Feminist Science?" (1987). Hypatia 2 (3), pg 58 [13] Dyson, Freeman. The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet: Tools of Scientific Revolutions. Oxford University Press, 1999. pg 144 [14] Richmond, Campbell. Illusions of Paradox: a Feminist Epistemology Naturalized. Politics, Law, and Society, 1998. [15] Koertge, Noretta et. al. A House Built on Sand: Postmodernist Myths about Science. Oxford University Press, 2000. [16] Gross, Paul; Levitt, Norman. Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels with Science. John Hopkins University Press, 1994. [17] Gross, Paul; Levitt, Norman; Lewis, Martin. The Flight from Science and Reason. New York Academy of Sciences, 1996. [18] Sokal, Alan; Bricmont, Jean. Fashionable Nonsense (Intellectual Impostures in the French version). New York: Picador, 1998. [19] Almeder, Robert F et. al. Scrutinizing Feminist Epistemology: An Examination of Gender in Science. Rutgers University Press, 2003. [20] Weinberg, Steven. Facing Up: Science and its Cultural Adversaries. Harvard University Press, 2003. [21] Macksey, Richard; Eugenio, Donato. The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man: The Structuralist Controversy. John Hopkins University Press, 1970. pg 267 [22] Latour, Bruno. A Relativistic Account of Einstein’s Relativity. Social Studies of Science (1988). 18:1 [23] Harding, Sandra G. Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?. Ithaca: Cornell U, 1991. Print. pg 80 [24] Irigaray, Luce. "Sujet de la science, sujet sexué?". Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (1987). pg 110 [25] Hunter, Marcus A. “Racial physics or a theory of everything that happened.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 40:8 (2017) pg 1173 [26] Hunter, Marcus A. “Racial physics or a theory of everything that happened.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 40:8 (2017) pg 1182 [27] Rossner, Sue. Teaching the Majority: Breaking the Gender Barrier in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering. Teachers College Press, 1995. Chapter 6 [28] Indigenous Science Declaration, page 3 www.esf.edu/indigenous-science-letter/Indigenous_Science_Declaration.pdf [29] Carey, Mark et. al. “Glaciers, gender, and science: A feminist glaciology framework for global environmental change research.” Progress in Human Geography 40:6 pg 770-793 (2016) [30] Scientific American: “Point of View Affects how Science is Done” www.scientificamerican.com/article/point-of-view-affects-how-science-is-done/ [31] Eric Hovind’s “Beginnings” Seminar: Session 5 [32] Bill Nye vs Ken Ham debate at the Creation Museum (24 Feb. 2014) [33] NBC News: “From Darwin to Damore, How Modern Science has Failed Women” www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/darwin-damore-how-modern-science-failed-women-ncna801586 [34] University of Wisconsin-Madison News: “First in the Nation: UW establishes first post-doc for feminist biology” news.wisc.edu/first-in-the-nation-uw-madison-establishes-post-doc-in-feminist-biology/ [35] Biologos: “Are Scientists biased by their worldview?” biologos.org/blogs/deborah-haarsma-the-presidents-notebook/are-scientists-biased-by-their-worldviews [36] Baringer, Philip S. After the Science Wars. New York: Routlege, 2001. pg 2 [37] The Guardian: “Science has always been a bit post-truth” www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2016/dec/15/science-has-always-been-a-bit-post-truth [38] Kuhn, Thomas S. The Road since Structure: Philosophical Essays, 1970 - 1993. University of Chicago Press, 2000. [39] Fuller, Steve. Kuhn VS Popper. Columbia University Press, 2003. [40] Kitzmiller VS Dover transcripts- Day 15am ncse.com/files/pub/legal/kitzmiller/trial_transcripts/2005_1024_day15_am.pdf [41] Fuller, Steve. Science VS Religion? Intelligent Design and the Problem of Evolution. Polity Press, 2007. [42] Fuller, Steve. Dissent over Descent. Icon, 2007. [43] Vaahtera, Touko. “We Swam before we breathed and walked.” Disability & Society 31:5 (2016) [44] Ah-King Malin. “Sexual Selection Revisited- Towards a gender neutral theory and practice.” 14:4 (2007) [45] Creation.com: “Evolution is inherently racist” creation.com/evolution-is-inherently-racist [46] Everyday Feminism: “The History Reveals that Science isn’t Nearly as Objective as You Think” everydayfeminism.com/2016/11/scientific-objectivity-myth/ [47] Latour, Bruno. (2004) "Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern". Critical Inquiry, Vol. 30, No. 2, Winter 2004, pp. 225-248 [48] Investor’s Business Daily Editorial: “U.N.'s Global Warming Fraudsters Are More Interested In Climate Cash Than Climate Change” www.investors.com/politics/editorials/u-n-s-global-warming-fraudsters-are-more-interested-in-climate-cash-than-climate-change/ [49] Slate: “Stop Equating Science with Truth” www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2017/08/evolutionary_psychology_is_the_most_obvious_example_of_how_science_is_flawed.html [50] The Federalist: “Feminist PhD Candidate: Science is Sexist Because it’s Not Subjective” thefederalist.com/2016/09/29/feminist-phd-candidate-science-sexist-not-subjective/ [51] Parson, Laura. “Are STEM Syllabi Gendered? A Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis”. The Qualitative Report (2016) 21:1; Article 9 [52] Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center’s FAQ: “Why is intelligent design theory often controversial?” www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1160?

[@sansamman4619]

King Crocoduck these videos are boring man I subscribed for the quantum mechanics series and your funny creative physics videos but now it's just annoying!!

[@tiavor]

I found it very informative and had a few laughs e.g. femfreq promotes ID

[@berserker8884]

San Samman These videos are not for entertainment, but are the spark for very serious discussions on very important matters. These things have to be presented and talked about as soon as possible in great detail. Now go back to your shallow meme entertainment.

[@sansamman4619]

Berserker Berserker the quantum mechanics videos where for learning, and education if you think talking about atheism and stuff like the video above is for education(like the channels category shows) you are wrong, if you talk about stuff like that above you won't impact anyone the only people watching him are the once who agree with him which means he doesn't have any impact. and in the beginning of my comment there is a name( king crocoduck ) which isn't your name I don't care about what you think I just sent some feed back to the person who creates content . *not you*

[@berserker8884]

San Samman sigh. The problem is that the devil is in the details. There are a ton of smart people around who can understand this and might want to consider this. I see this shit daily with alternative treatments and psuedoshit and I am very careful these things. I just think that we have to talk about this more in detail which is essentail to have a meaningful constructive argument. With his video he reminds us that something must be done and that we need to be careful. It is his own way of saying be careful and I accept that. The QM vids are wonderful and all, the anti creationist vids are also funny but also meaningful and true, but I absolutely adore that he goes into huge detail in some of his videos just like AntiCitizenX.

[@hagbardceline9909]

Well, I was gonna go to sleep at a reasonable time tonight, but fine.

[@Sirholyphoenix]

Sleep is for the weak, allegedly.

[@ebt7]

Said by someone that then zzzzzzz

[@boriscat1999]

Sleep is a social construct introduced through colonialism.

[@11anonymous6]

Say “high” to SNAFU for me (I miss that waskal wabbit)

[@raychavez7047]

Fuck, for real.

[@WildwoodClaire1]

Without watching much of your video (I just paused to comment), my first reaction is that the problem with describing science as a social construct is that "social construct" seems often to be merely a cudgel used by nihilists whom I like to call "garglers at the fountain of wisdom." Their purpose is to dismiss science merely as a weapon of racist imperialism. Typically, they're persons who never managed to grow out of their "cynical sophomore phase," and they've found dismissing science as a collection of culturally biased opinions more gratifying than investing time and effort to actually learn any science. They're particularly fond of citing the work of 19th and early 20th century anthropologists, cultural geographers, and eugenicists to "expose" the racist and imperialist purposes of science. And, they generally don't understand that science is methodology for learning about the natural world in which conclusions may be revised or overthrown by new discoveries and evidence. Instead, they perceive science as a sort of alternative religion with its own holy writ. And this very basic misperception of science leads them to regard any revision of ideas within it as evidence of invalidity of science in general.

[@claytonhenrickson9326]

I smiled when I saw your post. Don’t know why I was surprised to find out you too, are a fan of KC, especially since he mentioned you in a video.

[@nunyabisnass1141]

WildwoodClaire1 there is a street I pass by in my home town named "Wildwood ln." For years I've been wanting to steal the street sign and mail it to you.

[@WildwoodClaire1]

Just TRY to find me :)). BTW, "wildwood" comes from my maternal grandmother's favorite song, "Wildwood Flower, performed by the Carter Family. "Claire" is a tribute to the great Weimar era performer Claire Waldoff.

[@privatepile762]

Excellent comment. As an academic in the field of special education (with autism being my particular focus), I have repeatedly encountered arguments that suggest eugenics proves scientists and their methods are dangerous. The autistic identity movement, also called neurodiversity, often claims that our attempts to educate and treat children with autism robs the person of their autism, as if we should celebrate and accept the nonverbal child whose behavior is so maladaptive that it diminishes their quality of life. When the flaws in their arguments are exposed, Autistic identitarians retreat to eugenics, which is a pseudoscience and not an example of the misuse of good science. The new lysenkoists are everywhere in academia, including education. They discount the movement to advance evidence-based treatments for autism and, simultaneously, look down their nose at straight, white males like me who they claim at bent on hurting the very children who motivated my decades worth of studying. It’s really quite disgusting and frustrating.

[@DrogoBaggins987]

Hi Claire. I'm totally stealing "garglers at the fountain of wisdom" thanks.

[@petersmythe6462]

Definitions are social constructs. The concept of living is a social construct. The concept of an organism is a social construct. Genes are non-arbitary groups of base pairs and are socially constructed. Social construct does not mean "Wrong" or even "Optional." It means decided by arbitration by a group of people as a result of discussion and interaction. Science is perhaps the most effective proof that social construction can, if given the right environment, lead to very accurate subjective models for the objective world in which we live.

[@KrieseboRigels]

Welcome back! I'm looking forward to the rest of your science wars series.

[@vampyricon7026]

Same here. I love that series.

[@wendellr.garnettii4553]

Have you seen Dr. Fatima's video on gravity as a social construct?

[@shtyrkel]

She keeps spewing nonsense based on her poor understanding of physics and philosophy of science

[@HellBoy-tl8oc]

Yes we use words and symbols to describe gravity. No that doesn't make gravity a social construct even tho the things we use to explain gravity ( symbols and words ) may be.

[@LMYS5697]

​@@shtyrkelgravity, as we understand it scientifically, is socially constructed. Our constructed facts point to something real, but we can never gain objectivity. Gravity is an excellent example because every theory and mathematical equation we have of gravity is true - for certain use cases.

[@LMYS5697]

​@@HellBoy-tl8ocgravity is a social construct insofar as we understand it. There is no scientific theory of gravity that can explain it under all circumstances that we have encountered. There are collections of theories and equations

[@luca7253]

@samuilpetkov497 She literally has a PhD in astronomy (& published papers)​. Moreover saying that she has poor understanding of the philosophy of science doesn't make it true. I feel like you either haven't watched the video or you watched it already thinking it was wrong. And btw I think she is quite littered in the philosophy of science. While this video is a response to a parody of what serious people think of this topic. And if you think this video is really a philosophical discussion on the philosophy of science and the relation between it and society, my friend you have some reading to catch up with.

[@mutleyeng]

a really well thought out presentation. Excellent work. Now, all we need to do is condense it into a meme

[@vampyricon7026]

+

[@kenlee5509]

Pic, Lysenko. ~Top Text: "Plants Teach Each Other Stuff!" ... ~Bottom Text: "Social" "Science"

[@Snowy84557]

How about "DNA - Another science 'Social Construct' "

[@Snowy84557]

Evolution - Science social construct? Or a natural one?

[@thenewtalkerguy496]

@@Snowy84557 The CONCEPT of evolution is a social construct, yes. The concrete reality to which it refers, is not. The concept "evolution" is a way of simplifying the world into something that we can understand. One thing, the natural philosophy or "science", is a concept. That concept refers to a reality, but is not a reality. This may seem subtle, but once you understand it, its fundamental.

[@coopertownsend1371]

“These will vary from coffee shop to coffee shop” that got me

[@connordugan2733]

Incredible. You have yet to fail to deliver high quality content to your subscribers. Thank you for working so hard on these videos and contrubuting to the scientific arsenal we need to combat absolute nonsense. Cheers!

[@TheFate23]

Many scientific truths from the past like phrenology are now considered nonsense. Nonsense changes over time

[@vincentduhamel7037]

I have a PhD in epistemology, and I am thoroughly impressed by your videos. Good work.

[@KingCrocoduck]

Thank you very much! May I suggest (again) my "Science Wars" series? The first volume is all about epistemology, and the next entry will broadly be covering deconstructionist critiques of science

[@vincentduhamel7037]

I watched all of that yesterday. Amazing. And I shared it on facebook even though I'm a leftist with mostly leftist friends. I'm waiting to see if there's going to be a shitstorm. Can't wait for your next video.

[@vincentduhamel7037]

I'm curious. Where did you get the visuals for models, theories, background propositions etc, in your definitions section ?

[@KingCrocoduck]

Vincent Duhamel I generated them in MATLAB

[@vincentduhamel7037]

Very nice.

[@ismaelomaribanez]

I think one of the problems underlying the "scientific facts" issue is that we tend to forget that science is FULL of interpretations. You cannot just apply a model blindly. And in those interpretations lie most of the socially constructed parts of science. As an optical engineer, I can give an example of this by questioning what does "good optical quality" means. Maybe we mean diffraction limited optical systems, maybe it means optimal radiometric power transfer, maybe it means that we want distortion to be reduced, not caring a lot about sharpness. So if you adhere to either extreme: "Science is a complete social construct" or "Science is completely impartial and is based on facts that hold always and anywhere in the universe" you are, indeed, oversimplifying. Science is build on models and data and interpretations of those models and that data. You cannot avoid the socially constructed interpretations, otherwise, you are not doing science. you are just doing data collection.

[@dradenlol8667]

I would say that there are many issues with science, as a graduate from a research-heavy university. However, the most I can say science is a social construct is the way in which hypotheses are conjured up; people often base hypotheses on their understandings of the world, making assumptions which seem likely based on what they know and what previous research indicates; previous research follows this same pattern. Additionally, much research is conducted on participants who also themselves hold the same biases as previously mentioned. I was a psychology major, so this applies largely to that.

[@aiocafea]

i would say experimental design, though much more studied so in theory much more 'supervised' can also accidentslly or willingly hide some unstated hypotheses about the world same with all other steps of the process of course, where will this supervision come from if all the people supervising it are from the same culture and share blind spots?

[@isaachughes8138]

I have just found this channel. Wow your content is very well put together 👍. Not just a bunch of "why academia is corrupted" but instead feels very well grounded. Keep it up!

[@danjo2080]

When we talk about science as a social construct it is not to say that science does not offer objective fact, but to account for the phenomenology and epistimology of science through scientists. Scientific education is passed down in classrooms, socially constructed spaces in which the roles of teacher and student are clearly defined and followed. How a teacher instructs their students will not change the objective data, but it can affect how the student/scientist approaches, interprets, and express that data to others. Scientific discoveries are often made in labs, which are also socially constructed spaces with clearly defined behaviors and roles. Tacit knowledge is developed and shared throughout the process of discovery. We may certainly get to a reasonable and shared understanding of objective reality, but it takes social processes to get there. Also, the idea that science is socially constructed leans heavily on the idea that the observer can inadvertently affect that which is being observed. A common example is that we can not measure an electron in both wave and particle form, but either/or. A scientist may also interact with their variables differently than someone else. Again, this is not to say that objective facts will not be reached, but that the road to getting to them can be subjectively influenced. Lastly, the process of peer review is a social process. It inherently accounts for the reality that human error through subjective bias can occur. We repeat processes to make sure objective results can be seen across the board by utilizing a range of subjective lenses. Again again, not to say objective fact can not be reached, but getting there together is a social process. We should definitely give many scientists credit for being aware of this and trying to mitigate their subjectivities in the lab. It's important to note that even what they're studying could be influenced by social forces (i.e. someone who studies cancer because they lost a loved one to cancer). To say science is social construct is not to say that objective facts are closer to subjective truths, but that scientific discovery is a socially constructed process enacted by social beings. I think that's pretty simple to understand.

[@KingCrocoduck]

I addressed this in the video and made a distinction between weak social constructionism and strong social constructionism.

[@audunms4780]

​@@KingCrocoduckmay i ask, is a fact not a statement? And a statement a sentance of a language be it english or formal logic. And that language is a a sosial construct right? And is not theese models by that right composits of statements witch makes them constructs?

[@rinzhler6922]

​@@audunms4780 By your approach we can say that the science we do indeed interact with is a social construct , but it heavily undermines science and the quest for objective truth which is something beyond social constructs. Science is not just a social construct.

[@xIQ188x]

@@KingCrocoducksuch a lazy non response lol. Enjoy sucking yourself off.

[@xIQ188x]

@@rinzhler6922it doesn’t undermine anything, you just aren’t very smart so you hear some words you don’t like and believe they have magically insulted science. You don’t have to pretend to have a rational point, you can just say that you think the words “social construct” are icky and you don’t know why.

[@TheMacadias]

14:13 Oh look it's a chicken! But wait, chicken may be a social construct...

[@WildwoodClaire1]

I spent a couple of minutes contemplating the Derrida quote at 26:40 and have no more idea what it means than if it had been expressed in Urdu. I'm particularly bemused by Derrida's reference to "the game." No doubt his statement is very profound and my lack of comprehension is merely a product of poor education, cognitive impairment, and cultural bias. :))

[@covfefekek3111]

You lost the game

[@DJW1959Aus]

It is a type of con-artistry nonsense dressed to sound profound.

[@sagerider2]

Or maybe Derruda is talking out of their ass. Notice , I didn't assume Deruda's sex. LOL

[@covfefekek3111]

Assuming someone has an ass is a sexed assessment only assassins would make. Structuring a sentence so the word ass appears 5 times was difficult to say the least. Also can someone identify as just an ass? Can someone tell me if I can identify as just an ass? kzbin.info/www/bejne/nJSbqWSJlN5jq9U

[@PedroTricking]

>It is not the concept of something >it is the concept of the game What???..... Is it a concept of something or not? Do you mean it is a concept something in the field? And the game is not in the field? What the fuck are you talking about? Why just not be clear, it might as well just be the ramblings of a schizophrenic...

[@bueblird]

A few partial objections. 1. I am an applied scientist. From my perspective, it is abundantly clear that society impacts what research is funded (the profitable ones), what kinds of results scientists feel pressured to produce (positive), and that science is communicated to the public in ways that are heavily warped by society. That much seems like a reasonable definition of "science as a social construct", which I know at least some STS people to hold; I do understand your critique to mostly be targeted at the absolute relativist fringe. 2. In softer or more applied sciences, interpretation is very commonly up to debate, even when everyone agrees on data. If watching TV before bed delays sleep by 15 minutes, then is it clinically significant? Depends on the definition of clinical significance, which depends on the society's value judgements about sleep disturbances. Similarly, researchers on both sides of the debate on social media's impact on mental health agrees on the data; the dispute is whether the effect size seen is negligible or alarming. 3. While critical theory may be useless from your perspective as a hard scientist, from the perspective of the scientific study of engineering, critical theory is incredibly valuable. Since our research informs how tools are built, we try to design systems in a less biased way (e.g. algorithmic biases); the techniques and definitions of the field (AI fairness) is borrowed from critical theory. In other words, critical theory is useful to engineers insofar as it helps us design useful (e.g. high utility, safe, fair) systems.

[@Slythe01]

You're doing great and important work here KC.

[@Gibson1961SG]

Yes! Finally! Pls continue your series on the science wars soon. We need then as a society!

[@magottyk]

King Crocoduck is a social construction.

[@Sebastian-hg3xc]

Social constructionism is a social construct. ;-)

[@emiel89]

@@Sebastian-hg3xc my god, the holy trinity of relativism in postmodern and critical theories is a social construct. It almost seems like, if social constructs can be dismissed on the terms of them being a social construct, the whole notion and foundation of these theories can be dismissed as anything they propose is nothing more than that which they deconstruct, and criticize. It's a black hole of deepities and pseudo-profound self-destructive reasoning that leads to nowhere.

[@PeterDivine]

I've got this mental image of King Coco-puff hearing this and immediately freezing in horror at the realization he's been found out, before dissolving with a scream into a cloud of dust and abstraction.

[@teodordl]

The single notion that you guys need to understand is that conceptualizing something as a social construct is NOT to dismiss it.

[@KeithCooper-Albuquerque]

After viewing this video, I had to become a Patreon! I look forward to your fight against "Science is a Social Construct!"

[@Ansatz66]

In science it really doesn't matter where the theories come from. They could come from dreams or reading tea leaves. Maybe in some ways theories do come from social biases and politics. People can't separate themselves from the culture in which they live, not even scientists. All that really matters is that they do science well with the theories that they have, and that means putting those theories through the most rigorous gauntlet possible. In good science, theories are not our babies; theories are our punching bags and we must try to make them break. So maybe the theories are politically biased social constructs, but they must be durable, solid theories that can't be broken even with dedicated testing from all sides, and that testing continues still with the theories remaining unbroken. That may not make the theories true, but it's a good start and a noble effort. What this video really seems to be about is not whether scientific theories are social constructs. It's clear enough that society is the source of scientific theories, and many important theories might even be politically motivated, but that doesn't matter. It could be politics or it could be tea leaves, but either way, science goes on. What this video really seems to be warning about is the danger of using the political origin of theories as an excuse to try to turn science into a political vehicle. Instead of trying to falsify theories, people might decide to just ignore theories that favor their political opponents, just as they ignore all other ideas from their political opponents. Worse, they might propose their own political counter-theories to favor their political side with absolutely no interest in putting those theories through a gauntlet and seeing them potentially broken. We should not abuse the well-earned good reputation of science as a tool to gain political advantage. A scientific theory is like a bridge, and doing science is like putting heavy loads upon the bridge to see if it breaks. The philosophy of science is that when a bridge represents truth, it will not break under any load, no matter how great, so we keep on putting heavier and heavier loads onto each bridge to see if it will break. The danger is that people will see those durable bridges that still have not broken and envy the respect they have earned, and then people will build bridges to represent the ideas that they wish were true and then refuse to allow any weight to be put on them so that they can pretend that their bridges are just as strong as the ones that have been tested by science. The real issue isn't how theories are constructed or who constructs them or why. The issue is that we must not let the origins of theories blind us to the importance of doing real science. Social construct or not doesn't matter so long as we keep testing the theories.

[@Nixeu42]

While you're technically correct, it's generally considered a good idea to not propose hypotheses pulled straight out of one's colon. You can do it. But you're statistically less likely to explain the evidence than if you actually consider the data you're dealing with. Wasting effort breaking bridges made from balsa wood is kinda not fun, after a while. So people who make such metaphorical bridges are often ignored, after a while.

[@Ansatz66]

Every once in a while a crazy hypothesis that comes out of nowhere will turn out to be revolutionary. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Maybe it's just luck and maybe the odds of winning the lottery would be better, but you can't win the lottery if you don't play. If we ignore ideas just because they seem crazy and baseless, then we'll never come up with anything really new. An idea can't be great unless it's surprising and unintuitive. If the bridge really is as weak as it seems, then it will be easy to break, so no great effort is wasted in indulging the foolish ideas by tearing them down, and watching the idea break might help the people who came up with the idea come up with better ideas in the future. Obviously we shouldn't spend billions on testing a colon-based hypothesis. That's not the time to build a facility like LIGO or the Large Hadron Collider. But still it's nice to see people like Mythbusters seriously testing an idea like airplanes not being able to take off from a conveyor belt that's running backward, which is apparently something that many people seriously believed at the time.

[@jujuplayboy]

"Science is a social construct" is one of the most misunderstood statements ever. So, thank you for this video.

[@fakename4683]

I don’t see the problem with seeing science as a social construct. Even at the level of the scientific method there is an accepted socially understood construct, mainly the socially accepted idea that contradictions don’t exist, which falsification relies on. An example would be seen in the theories of modeling fluids. Hydrodynamics assumes a continuous fluid but models on diffusion in fluids assumes a discreet particle based medium. As such, the modeling of the same fluid has two socially understood ways to interact with the liquid and shows that there can be two ways to deal with the same matter. Beyond that, how should we approach Newtonian dynamics acceptance? It was always wrong, but useful. We now know that general relativity is better for calculating systems at the universal level, but ND is fine with local planet based observation. Lastly, I can see a role for paraconsistent logic in physics, mainly QM.

[@misterarchivist1634]

King Crocoduck doesn't always upload but, when he does, it's flawless. Stay curious, my friends.

[@christopherchilton-smith6482]

7:20 How do you choose which under-determined background propositions to test if you can't actually test them all? 13:56 Science can't escape social influence, different fields of science have different culture and those cultural values (including the wider cultural values of the society the scientists in those fields were raised in) will influence important factors like which background propositions are tested and yes even who those scientists are. For instance, it isn't by accident that most scientists in early America were white, it wasn't the case that all the smart people just happen to be white, there were (and arguably still are) severely important social factors that play into that. It is then, not outlandish to suggest that this may influence other scientifically relevant factors like which background propositions are chosen for testing. 14:48 Doesn't the attempt at Phrenology and Eugenics reveal that on some level this is true? Scientific racism is an actual thing my guy. 20:48 This seems like a straw man, isn't the argument that where under-determined background propositions have equal explanatory power (and all other features being more or less equal) that the background proposition that most favors political progress should be chosen or at least exclude the one that perseveres that status quo? All else being equal, why wouldn't we? 25:27 - 28:12 Okay, so that's all pure insanity and I would never try and defend these people's conclusions, nevertheless insofar as science is an exploration for accuracy and approximate truth (and it definitely is), social constructions inevitably bleed into that exploration. I mean we have explicit examples of science being used at attempts to preserve racial hierarchies... 28:15 I see your point and I agree, it is never ok to sacrifice explanatory power and falsifiability for any other value. This still doesn't address how scientific fields should address competing background propositions that are equally under-determined in situations where all background propositions can't be tested due to resource constraints. Social constructions will bleed in.

[@nikkovalidor4890]

[decolonialized black magic science]

[@khorps4756]

decolonize ur mind, racist

[@GegoXaren]

Yeah, Whitches.

[@vampyricon7026]

Yeah, she should get her head out of her colon.

[@GRIZZDOGG01]

You doo noh know deh wei.

[@GegoXaren]

GRIZZDOGG01 Whe is da qween?

[@Darkninja105]

The one day, THE ONE DAY, that I forget to check your channel and the long-awaited video arrives.

[@InternetLaser]

as a student of the dismal science, if you don't think social values have a profound impact on what is accepted as "fact" then you are being willfully obstinate. Sure, special relativity is less subject to these issues than others, but it's still entirely effected, like everything else.

[@aiocafea]

yeah this feels like an exercise of willfully not engaging with the actual points

[@stevenbaumann8692]

How did I miss this?! KZbin is really starting to get on my nerves. I’m glad you went into a detailed explanation of a scientific theory.

[@fmtpulmanns7593]

I had a discussion about this the other day. Some people were actually claiming that because STEM fields tend towards interpretations being wrong or right that means STEM people are more prone to extremism. In other words, science is dangerous. I find it highly troubling that the method that has been more unequivocally successful than any other in determining the truth of things is under attack from both the left and right side of the political isle.

[@Maladjester]

In the arena of politics, the truth is absolutely lethal. That's why it's so seldom used.

[@nunyabisnass1141]

That sounds functionally similar to "I only believe in facts." Where one can then rebut with "is that a fact?" Claiming that stem ppl tend toward extremist views because they are populated by ppl of a certain higher level of critical analysis and this have views that aren't easily found in the brouder population is comparing apples to oranges. Those aren't extreme views for ppl in stem, it's actually an extreme view for ppl not in stem. There's no shortage ppl that wish to be the smartest person in the room, but there is a conspicuous lack of actual smart ppl in any room. You know want a group of smart ppl is called? A contemporary. Bad jokes aside a lot of ppl think that not agreeing with someone is a what smart ppl do, but what they're really doing is cosplaying their head cannon of how they think a smart person behaves.

[@aiocafea]

the other day i heard someone say STEM people can often interpret facts in an extreme manner i could only interpret that by them calling science the source of all evil in the world and wanting to burn me on the pyre

[@Soundillusions94xyz]

I aspire to be as eloquent and precise as you in countering many of the fallacious ideas we encounter today, and in my general scientific endeavors. Your delivery in these videos is incredible. Thanks for uploading.

[@CJusticeHappen21]

Perhaps the issue isn't that science is a social construct, but that our means of understanding it are not free of social constructivism. The language that we use to understand and communicate our scientific findings is something that I can definitely agree to being socially constructed.

[@Bananas1000]

What I don't understand though, is how those "studies" are accepted and published in peer-reviewed journals

[@davidh.4944]

Good fucking god. I actually read a couple of the source papers in the video. The pure Orwellian stench radiating from them is unbelievable. The first one I read was _Can There Be A Feminist Science?_ The authors almost literally argue that the scientific process needs to be changed because the current paradigm isn't guaranteed to give them the answers they prefer. Scary, but I doubt many people will take this one too seriously. I didn't even bother to read it too carefully myself. The second paper, though, was absolutely terrifying; a true masterpiece of doublethink: _Women’s Studies as Virus: Institutional Feminism and the Projection of Danger_ . Remember the joke about how _1984_ isn't supposed to be read as an instruction manual? I swear the authors of this paper did just that. The first part of it is a description and summary of women's studies courses, and it is shockingly blunt and honest in pointing out the negative aspects of them, to the point where you initially have doubts as to what side the authors are even on. It flat out admits that women's studies courses in universities are lacking in clear definition and agreed-upon core concepts. They are usually unstructured, (non-cohesively) multi-disciplinary, not empirically validated, often contradictory, highly politicized, fraught with inter-faction conflicts, and full of confusing jargon. Their over-focus on the "personal as political" tends to create students who are less rational and more emotional than their peers, and they struggle to gain even grudging respect from students, faculty and society at large. But do they then go on to discuss ways to address any of these serious weak points? Hell no. They go on to brush all that off as unimportant, and conclude that they must instead focus on the _process_ of using women's studies as a tool to further promote itself. Such courses should be used to incubate human "viruses" -- indoctrinated students who then go on to infiltrate and corrupt all the other "patriarchal" institutions around them with their ideology. "Male feminists" are especially valuable for their ability to get into positions where women would be out of place. It truly is all about spreading their own influence, at the expense of all else. You can easily find them both online from their titles if you want to read them. If I ever had any doubts about the destructive nature of modern feminism, these two papers have certainly cured that.

[@KingCrocoduck]

The first paper was actually written by Helen Longino, a professor at Stanford and one of the most cited feminist in academia. You'd better believe that they take her seriously. And I agree with your assessment of the second paper.

[@Mr.Unacceptable]

This would be why the social sciences are mostly complete rubbish. How they come up with more than two genders and other absurd claims and why the HR departments are full of them and also so worthless and political.

[@micayahritchie7158]

Define the dichotomy between rationality and emotions that you're presenting here. I don't think any beliefs hold a neutral emotional vale and I don't think there's any thing that is devoid of emotion so I'd like if you could explain what you mean by that

[@micayahritchie7158]

And also I'd like to add that sure if what you say is true then this isn't the employment of testable empirical hypotheses. But testable empirical things aren't the only things that matter to the human experience and while (if you're correct) you could rightly call what you're describing not science. The assertion that ideas spread by women shouldn't be pushed into male dominated spaces and that it's illustrative of destructive behaviour (incidentally, destructive to what? Some things probably should be destroyed) is simply your own opinion. It not being science doesn't invalidate its merit as an idea instantaneously right?

[@parasharkchari]

Interestingly, I tried looking through the French+English version of the Luce Irigaray paper from which that quote at 27:43 is supposed to have come. The version that's in the Hypatia "journal" doesn't seem to have it. Also, the English version of Irigaray's book which is supposed to have compiled a number of her publications doesn't even mention relativity or Einstein at all in spite of having this paper in it as a chapter. It's possible it was removed, but an earlier edition (or possibly even a review draft) might have had it, but I can't find one now. The only mentions I've found are from Sokal & Bricmont's book criticizing the same social constructionists you are, and Irigaray is among them, but all versions I've found of the supposed source don't seem to have that quote. That said, I wouldn't put it past her considering that I can find other examples of her saying similarly stupid things. In one of her books -- caringlabor.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/irigaray-this-sex-which-is-not-one.pdf -- she spends a chapter arguing that the reason fluid mechanics is so hard is because fluidity is apparently feminine while mechanics is masculine and the rigor of mathematics is supposedly too masculine of a lens to elucidate truths about the feminine.

[@HYEOL]

I liked how you looked down on coffee-shops ♥

[@SmashedHatProject]

Well they ARE just currently socially-acceptable drug dens :P

[@nullinf]

Not so much coffee shops themselves, rather the regulars that regard themselves as intellectuals (aka. the "hipsters").

[@charltonblake9967]

I like coffee and dislike wearing shoes, should I be offended?

[@MisterTutor2010]

When I in Seattle 2 years ago, I saw the first Starbucks, the legendary birthplace of the world's first hipster douchebag :)

[@johns294]

Great explanations and examples . I really appreciate the time you put into these videos. Peace ✌🏼

[@phillipwombacher9635]

The people criticizing and writing about these theories couldn’t pass a undergraduate chemistry class lets be real..

[@revelationreflection]

Wow, great presentation, amazing clarity. Thanks a lot. Instant sub and like!

[@hencrazy]

Have you ever studied the philosophy of scientific change? There's a toronto professor by the name of Hakob Barseghyan who teaches a course exploring such ideas. His youtube channel has his entire course material uploaded if you want to see.

[@timeaesnyx]

Rocket Propelled Mexican I plan to watch those, thank you

[@AQGOAT24]

thanks

[@kementurh]

I intended to watch about 5 minutes of this and now I've watched the entire thing. Brilliant work.

[@Horvath_Gabor]

I hate watching your videos, because they keep making me lose faith in humanity, but I can't stop. -.-' [sigh] Time to go on an archive binge again and feel even more depressed, I suppose...

[@kenlee5509]

The loud idiot fringe is not a representative sample of all humanity. Be of good cheer.

[@Ugly_German_Truths]

+Ken Lee But they are the ones that will drag all of us with them down into the abyss when their idiotic dance on the picket fence will cause them to fall towards their doom... It does not take a majority to destroy civilisations... just enough of really enthusiastic fools starting the marches and lighting the torches.

[@kenlee5509]

Everything they try fails. They will lose the ground they have gained. They will be the new unemployable.

[@8rr725]

@@Ugly_German_Truths Thank you, thank you, thank you. You described the danger of these people perfectly.

[@ulises6333]

Really happy to see you again KC ! Greetings from Chile

[@berserker8884]

King Crocoduck I would love it if you were to make a video on how medicine is being trusted less and less by the public and more and more people promote psuedoscience alternative treatments that are in most cases dangerous and in some fatal(e.g. anti vascination). I found myself in such a situation where I went through lots of SHIT just to make others understand that an old hag moving her hands above me and humming some shit cant help me with my desiese and that some alternative treatment that they forced me to take could even fucking kill me. It absolutely ruined my mental health. I lost practically all respect to uneducated people because of that and I am trying very hard to put myself together again.

[@berserker8884]

Kaname Locon exactly. They are all just huge frauds and in lots of cases its even worse and they dont even know they are talking shit. I am purpusely avoiding conversations with such people as I almost never tend to get anywhere with my arguments. These people are as close minded as it gets and I want to promote that something must be done here as its getting worse every day. In my case, for example, I know some people with the same desiese as I have and they lie to doctors that the medicine is helping but in truth they do not even take the medicine and throw it in the fucking trash can with ZERO FUCKING SHAME. My mom told me about them with fucking pride, like it was a novel thing to do to trick doctors! These meds are extremely expensive and one fucking pill could probably feed hundreds of kids in africa and those dipshits are throwing it away like its fucking nothing. One small bottle of those pills costs like 12000 usd and fuuckkkk. Not only that but whats probably even worse is that doctors are publishing fake results because people are fucking retarded; this medicine might be very dangerous but we wpuldnt know until someone just get super sick because of it and thwy would never know its because of it. Qell the last case probably wont happen as there is still more solid info than such bullshit but still we have to be very careful here. Im furious! And oh god this is just a single example of the chaos that is happening.

[@berserker8884]

Kaname Locon Thank you for the reply, I dont midn the rant, it is important to state what we think. I say people long for the mystical stories rather than what seems a bland and boring portrait of the reality, science that is, but actually science is the most myschical, beautiful and absolutely intriguing stories of them all :D. I am so happy that you took the approach you mentioned as I absolutely love physics and math and thus one of the things I find extremely passionate among others is teaching others and showing them the beauty of nature and math. We need to work hard to build our society and work by showing kids what true meaning of life is. Don't get me wrong, I am no physicist or mathematician yet as I am merely a first year physics student, however I am working very hard for my own life and I must admit that this hard work is an integral part of my life. I think everyone should stick to something and master it, be it farming, science, sports, arts or anything else, but one absolutely has to work deeply on something. This fact, I think, is possibly the root of our problem here. Generally, most people do not have such experiences and they are a little lost in their lives, they cannot appreciate what masters do and how they do it, they think doctors are frauds, scientists liers and so on. We have to teach them to respect the hard work and competence behind science and other important fields of knowledge, we need to teach them the core beauty and magic behind every field of knowledge and craft so that the society will understand, we need to educate our society further with more creative personal approaches. I also think that another problem is the learned helplessness which makes kids think they suck at something, while the reality is that the learning approach is wrong and things should have been presented through a different angle to excite the kids more making them more open to learning, as they otherwise mostly filter out the important bits of information and acrually never even recieving the important bits. I notice that I tend to go a bit liberal on the topic with this, thus I can respect other views and I am VERY open to other ideas. I literally pulled this out of my head but I do wish to further this debate or that others continued it.

[@Sapiensiate]

respectfulinsolence.com/ is the best place I have found for the medicine woo being debunked. The author, Orac, is a oncology surgeon I believe who regularly points out the issues with many alternative medicines and also discusses how it is being shoehorned into the medical profession more and more. Whether it is the medicine behind the issue, the media coverage, or the political ramifications Orac is almost always on point with easy to understand explanations and no small share of wit. (archives: oracknows.blogspot.co.uk/ )

[@berserker8884]

Sapiensiate thank you for this resource. I will check it out later for sure!

[@nunyabisnass1141]

Kaname Locon well chiropracy isnt 100% bull shit. There are some practices that have almost as much credibility as sports medicine, but unfortunately are not regulated in the same way the rest of medicine is, so it leads the door open to some wacky personal approaches that a licensed physician would never get away with. Its like saying that that saturated fat is bad for you because it retars your thrid chakra flow...well they are correct...but for the wrong reasons, which i see an awful lot of.

[@TheSpiralZero]

I was with you for a while but..your conclusion section is just so bad, it's making me believe in social constructionism! Some author don't like how people use their ideas (so what??), bedfellows with creationism (guilt by association?), it's dangerous therefore it's bad (maybe it's dangerous because it's powerful?), "so wide open that it will include any pseudoscientific nonsense" ( a) Homunculus fallacy b) that's the entire point?? ). You are going to need some better arguments than that to convince me. Otherwise good video, nice production.

[@amihartz]

I am definitely I guess what you would call a weak social constructivist in that I see it as rather absurd to even suggest that science _isn't_ a social construct, but it also seems rather absurd to try and dismiss science for this reason.

[@teodordl]

The kicker is that virtually no one is dismissing it for that reason

[@luvisacigarette8]

This is simply one of the best videos on KZbin. Well done sir, my hat is off to you and devotion to sensible discourse in the modern era people screaming their grievances

[@imh3r3now1]

Fellow biophysicist here! I think you ALMOST nailed the real issue with ridiculous claims about science being a "social construct", but I wanted to point out one extra concession that I would have made. This might be a difficult idea to safely express given the inability of people in this type of ultra-contentious debate to actually listen to the words that are being said without taking things out of context. It might also boil down to a simple disconnect between where you and I draw the line between "science" and "bad statistics"/"non-science". Nevertheless, I think by not addressing the point I lay out here, you made a video that will largely be ignored by social constructivists, since you failed to cede some points in which they can be sure that they are actually correct, hurting your "credibility" with your audience. Specifically, I would say that not only do we have to concede to the social constructionists that science is done "within" society (although I agree that this is tautological, and is often used as a Trojan horse with which to attempt to trick us into "admitting" that we agree with social constructionism by equivocation), but we also have to concede that there are types of science where your societal standing can in fact lead to huge differences in the interpretations of particular scientific results. It may be easy to ignore this fact as a physicist, where dozens of meticulously-established laws about for you to double-check hypotheses and assertions, but if we look out into the diverse mileau of possible subjects for the scientific enterprise, it is easy to encounter examples where we have *literally* nothing more to go on than the measurements that we ourselves take and the biases we bring in. In some fields, it's not clear yet that there are any invariants of the system which would ever qualify as scientific laws (at least, not any that are "computable" via an method more simple than simply simulating the whole system of interest). Yes, I am in fact talking here about the social sciences (although I've seen biases in educational background lead to equally shit, persistently bad results in the hard sciences (see the "colored lines" hypothesis, the "30nm fiber" structure of DNA, and many others), so this is not a problem unique to "soft" or "social" sciences). Basically most common issue here is that scientists (as fallible humans with finite computing power) often fail to correctly identify the full space of possible models that could explain a limited set of measurements (which is why this is typically, but not always, a problem of the social sciences, where the ratio of amount of measurements to system complexity is astonishingly small), since the smaller the set of measurements, the larger the space of models that can explain them. Thus, I would say that in this limited sense, where scientists may be unable to adequately do "good enough" job at model space exploration, and are likely to be biased towards models that match their personal internal picture for how the world works, **the outcomes of science can be non-trivially affected by social status of the scientists**. This can be as blatant as a racist psychologist accidentally (and in good faith) p-hacking results to certify their own world view. But it can also be as subtle as a lack of mathematicians/computer scientists in biology leading to the lack of perspective that allowed something like the "colored lines" hypothesis to become popular. Furthermore, because of the social structure of science (where nepotism and favoritism abound at the highest levels (as I've observed throughout my PhD at Stanford)), these kinds of bad conclusions reached via a combination of "random chance", "social bias", and "poor explanation of model space" can persist for *very long times*. For a hard-sciences example, simply look at how long people thought the 30nm fiber was a reasonable hypothesis for chromatin's structure, when there are *mathematical* reasons to rule it out as a default hypothesis (e.g. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/708966v1). So you may think this was not worth covering in your video, since maybe you consider this kind of issue the realm of "well what you're saying isn't that science is socially constructed, but that bad science can leak social biases into an otherwise objective strategy for learning about the world." And I largely agree. However, you have obviously had this conversation enough by now that you must realize that when people are saying science is socially constructed, they are typically talking about the output of the modern scientific enterprise as a whole, not about the theoretical abilities of a hypothetically objective scientific pursuit. So of course humanities people get fooled into thinking science is a social construct! The departments they interact most closely with are the social sciences (which are the most likely to fall into the errors I describe above). So by failing to acknowledge this kind of error, something which any social constructionist is likely to have seen a ton of examples of in the past, I think you missed an opportunity to really drive home to that audience why science itself is not socially constructed, and why we can trust results from physics, fluids, biology etc: Because science does provide us with a set of metrics with which to compare alternative models of the world that is objective (as long as we don't fuck it up), and there are fields where that process has been performed exhaustively carefully to the point that arguing about it being socially constructed as opposed to based in a set of objective principles makes you look like an idiot (see e.g. QFT). P.S. I would argue that heliocentrism vs geocentrism evolving had a lot more to do with the social pressures of the time than you let on. Up through the death of Copernicus, when the two models (which until that time used only circular orbits) had relatively equal predictive power, it really was a purely sociological decision which of the two models should be used. It was only with the increased predictive power of Newton's gravity that heliocentrism became the rational choice, a model switch guided by actual scientific principles of increased predictive power and model simplicity.

[@imh3r3now1]

To be clear: the specific complaint with the video I have is that I disagree with your claim that it is not the case that "the conclusions reached by a scientific model is not..shaped by facts...but also by who is doing the research". I would argue that for sufficiently underspecified scientific models (such as many psychological theories, e.g. IQ), this is not the case. You are free to call them unscientific models but they do meet all the criterium you lay out at the start of the video, and the conclusions that are extracted from such models in practice (we should give up on helping blacks be smarter, see e.g. "The Bell Curve") are often dangerously laden with implicit bias, regardless of whether or not the facts themselves are accurate. Instead, I wish you would have focused on arguing against the idea, as you put it so well, that in the case of two proposed scientific models "neither model has any objective advantage over the other because both are ultimately the subjective expression of whoever developed them". I would argue this is the main issue with social constructionist views of science. Not that they point out (correctly) that social bias exists even within scientists (who are, after all, human), but the fact that they claim that this means scientists have forfeited any claim to having a more objective procedure for learning about reality.

[@bradleywillis1654]

The diagrams are so interesting it’s hard to focus on the brilliant verbal presentation while looking at them

[@WildEngineering]

I can socially construct my love for new KC videos! Keep up the good work man, you inspire me!

[@physicsbutawesome]

Excellent video, man! Can't believe how much effort you put into this.

[@joelcr250]

*Quantum theory part 3 >?!?!!!????????????????????????????*

[@BabySkinCondom]

YESSSSSSS

[@Rhannmah]

Probably around Half-Life 3's release

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

any quantum theory based on schrodinger is not correct since Schrodinger ignored de Broglie's critique of relativity.

[@chrissonofpear3657]

Hidden variables and pilot waves may be in again...

[@korayacar1444]

@@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885 What is this guilt-by-association appeal-to-authority dismissal of an undefined potential model doing here? Hypotheses are to be tested, not dismissed out of hand. Also, I don't see where QM would be without Schrödinger's equation.

[@stevethomas319]

Wow, once again, thank you for such an amazing and insightful video. It is so refreshing that there are a few of you out there defending reality. What a great video.

[@DrCruel]

Reality does not need defending. _"Reality doesn't care if you believe (in) it."_ - Boba Fett

[@LeeboProductions]

The Einsteinian Constant can only be explained by translating the explanation from word salad, which is the Derridinian Constant.

[@luca7253]

What? This is not, in any shape or form, what is (generally) meant by serious scholars/persons when saying "Science is a social construct". Do you really think this is what is meant or are you purposely spreading misinformation? Btw I am a PhD student in physics and I believe science is a social construct (thing which is not stopping me from studying it or trusting it)

[@KingCrocoduck]

You're going to have to be more specific, since this video delineated between different uses of the expression "science is a social construct."

[@soulfuzz368]

“oh shit this science stuff is hard, how can I make myself seem relevant without doing any real work?”

[@catguy00]

They are doing the same thing with Math now.

[@saltburner2]

@@catguy00 But none of them will ever build a computer, a mobile phone or get a job on the space programme. But they will earn far more in University departments of Diversity and Inclusion, so they are not worried.

[@RipTheJackR]

You.... are ... a... madman! All those points and line-segments.... mind blown. Edit: I do buy the fact that these videos take a long time to be made, man, the bibliography you went through is astonishing.

[@Wrexywrex328]

Please don't let this color your impressions of Anthropology as an entire field of practice. This professors beliefs aside, Anthropology has been hugely important in the unraveling of human biological origins and the development of language and culture, to be very unspecific and generalizing. NOTE: This comment's existence has some ego protection involved, as I am currently studying for a Bachelor's in Anthropology. Just being clear and honest

[@KingCrocoduck]

My opinion of anthropology as a field is unaffected by that PowerPoint

[@Wrexywrex328]

King Crocoduck Good. I was also addressing your viewers as well

[@nathanpaulson9460]

Really outstanding video, thank you for taking the time to make it

[@simorote]

11:38 aaargh! then it's not equivalent... Awesome video anyway, you are great!

[@KingCrocoduck]

simorote GR is not equivalent to classical- what's equivalent is the classical expression (Poisson's eq) to Newton's law of gravity

[@simorote]

what i meant was: if Einstein's Field equation mathematically implies the Law of Gravity but the latter is not necessarily a sufficient condition for the former, then the two cannot be "mathematically equivalent", which is material equivalence. Two equivalent formulas A and B are such that: [ if A ( is true) then B] and [ if B then A].

[@__-cx6lg]

simorote Exactly, which is why it was never claimed that they were equivalent. The claim was that Poisson's equation is equivalent to Newton's. That is, from A, you can derive B, where B is equivalent to C. You misinterpreted this as saying that A is equivalent to B.

[@BillM1960]

Be afraid of these people, very afraid. They may seem stupid but they are indeed dangerous.

[@bradchervel5202]

Gettin out my Spirograph!!!!

[@OutOfTheBoxThinker]

This video should be mandatory viewing for every kid in elementary school!

[@tibees]

Is math a human construct?

[@eXtremeDR]

A construct of mind - but whose mind?

[@jimmyhirr5773]

There is a long-running debate attempting to answer that question. Look up "philosophy of mathematics."

[@brianlaroche8856]

Is more of a relativistic aproach but allways subject to revision or change so its a ongoing project to use the limited factors avail. at this stage. And in a way man could still survive just as well as hunter gathere with a phd

[@Vasto--Lord]

Yes, everything is a social construct. We as a society have created maths because we get utility and value out of it. It does not exist within the objective universe, in the same way as what I’m saying right now doesn’t exist. Language in of itself is a social construct.

[@TunezCottage]

Oh how cool to see Toby here.

[@psychee1]

0:54 to 13:00 is one of the most compressed, fact-heaviest summaries of the scientific enterprise I've seen and it's amazing. Viewing it as a network of nodes makes it so much easier to visualize.

[@Pistahufnagel386]

I mean... I can agree on a lot and dislike certain tendencies of American universities (it really is mostly just American, as of yet, thank god). Still, I think neither you nor some of them actually understand the principle. Science is actually a social construct, like it or not, the same way as any other type of ontological conception. But the silly fundamentalistic scientism of today makes people one-dimensional and unable to see it.

[@nielsholmlassen8275]

Science being a social construct should not make one anti science tho, it should more just be something one remembers as to not fall into the pitfalls of those who came before us, and it also nessecary to fully understand science as a tool and as a mechanism of gaining knowledge to say science isn't a social construct to me does science a diservice since it might lead to missuse and misunderstanding of the brilliant tool that is science

[@slaveNo-4028]

this video: how to make things sound more complicated than they could be explained cuz you need to sound eloquent

[@KingCrocoduck]

slave No. 4028 I don't merely sound eloquent, I AM eloquent as fuck

[@sjambler]

When I drive across a bridge I would prefer that the engineers in charge of the design do NOT believe that science is merely a social construct.

[@DrCruel]

I'd avoid the Florida International University pedestrian bridge if I were you.

[@Froggo9000]

Why do you trust money to buy your groceries then if money is a social construct? Social constructivism does not mean that things are relative, or unimportant, or that rigorous testing of ideas is disallowed.

[@Desertphile]

"... from coffee shop to coffee shop...." for the WIN!

[@mythousandfaces]

Science is a social construct, being a methodology that was constructed by a group of humans in the pursuit of knowledge, I know I'm being pedantic but maybe you should change your title. I know that's not the intent of the video or anything, just trying to preempt idiots trying to disengage from the actual subject matter.

[@kenlee5509]

Science happens within social space, but the method and it's results are not socially controlled.

[@claytonhenrickson9326]

Ken Lee lolz, he thought is pontification was a poignant refutation of a portion of KC’s vid but couldn’t make the distinction between a system and the players in that system. Derp. “Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, even discerning if he holds his tongue.”

[@doombybbr]

English is a social construct, math is a social construct, the conceptual idea of a platapus is a social construct - who cares what is a social construct anymore?

[@mythousandfaces]

Do people not know what words mean? I'm just pointing out that the title is a bit off. I literally said it's not relevant to the content of the video, just that it might distract.

[@doombybbr]

I think it is important, those who throw around the words "social construct" merely want to make what they are talking about seem lesser without actually explaining their problem with it. Though I assume you already knew that.

[@TheReaverOfDarkness]

I love how the title question is answered in the thumbnail!

[@bpdmf2798]

I would say it's only a social construct in the sense that our society constructed it, but not in the sense that it's just a construction of a particular society. It's a process, a very reliable process that is able, circular as it may seem, to correct itself with the application of it's principals as more and newer information is gathered.

[@trumanhw]

I LOVE YOUR WORK. Thank you so much for the effort you put in to my edification. You may be my FAVORITE content creator; and I wish I could do more to spread your channel. Thank you... it's an honor to be a contributor. Some of it goes by quickly -- processing your narration -- juxtaposed with the point your charged with invalidating... may benefit some people from being slowed an iota. I pause, rewind, rewatch if I need more time to understand your message. Lazy or arrogant people will not; they'll start text messaging, etc. Again, thank you!

[@Juicexlx]

Call me snob and pedantic, but I only use the word Science for hard, fundamental sciences like: Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geology, Paleontology etc. I rank Psychology, Sociology as Humanities. With the possible exception of Anthropology, being somewhere between the 2 categories depending on specific research conclusions supported by substantial, material evidences from Biology, Archeology and Paleontology. That classification avoids a lot of misrepresentation of bullshit Statistics & made-up opinion-based, political crap emanating from Humanities. Some serious Humanities researchers tried hard to clean their professions by learning & using advanced statistical tools & using rigorous, sampling methodology. Sadly for those people, social media has facilitated/accelerated the dissemination of bullshit and they could spend the rest of their lives debunking mountains of crap papers floating on the Internet.

[@GegoXaren]

What about evolutionary psychology? Also: good comment.

[@Juicexlx]

Uhm...I respect MIT Steven Pinker. He wrote some interesting papers about French vs Anglo-Canadians and how words and languages impact discourse in different cultures.

[@Nixeu42]

Pretty much how I feel, though I do give them the honor of being 'soft science'. And godspeed to those brave, mad souls trying to build islands of scientific rigor in the sea of bullsh*t.

[@GegoXaren]

Off topic: Add the following before and after some text to change style: "*" *for bold* "_" _for italic_ "-" -for struck through-

[@sakaklovas]

Spot on.

[@zarathustrasserpent1850]

Was the question about Derrida serious, or just rhetorical?

[@KingCrocoduck]

Give it a shot if you feel up to it

[@zarathustrasserpent1850]

I'm not familiar with the quote, but I think I do understand it. The "Einstienian Constant" is what Derrida just told you it is. He is not using an existing term, he is defining the term. And basically he is saying that unlike previous theories that were built around something that they claimed to be constant in the universe, the only constant that you find in Einstein's theory is the idea that everything in the universe is variable.

[@KingCrocoduck]

But c isn't variable- the entire theory is based upon that fact

[@zarathustrasserpent1850]

So maybe Derrida doesn't understand the theory.

[@TheAutistWhisperer]

Not even stem is safe....

[@fedos]

They need to attack STEM for their ideas to succeed.

[@hencrazy]

They've infiltrated HR, nowhere is going to be safe

[@pyrphoros8739]

This is a masterpiece about the process of science and deserves to be watched in full length. Sadly most people will not take the time to watch a video which is over half an hour. I think you should make three summary videos off under 5 min length explaining what a scientific model is, how to evaluate models and how new scientific models improve on the old ones. Those would spread better.

[@kemikao]

I fucking love your sexy-voice-videos, King!

[@stylis666]

I don't, so there :p Balance is brought back :)

[@TheStigma]

The only thing that baffles me more than people who seem to think that reality is dependent on their preferences is the sheer amount that exist of them...

[@micayahritchie7158]

I think you misunderstand what people are trying to say. Scientific facts are not reality. They're simply the results of the models scientists hold to best model reality. If however, what scientists choose to work on and the models they come up with are influenced by their culture then it simply true that scientific facts are a cultural construct. If newer models come about that invalidate what was previously considered to be fact then reality has not changed but the agreed upon facts have. No?

[@Froggo9000]

​@@micayahritchie7158You understand what a social construct is! Congratulations 🎉🎉🎉

[@micayahritchie7158]

@@Froggo9000 Uh okay... I was just trying to say to OP that scientific facts aren't reality, they're our best model of reality and so the people saying science is a social constrruvt aren't saying reality depends on society like he seems to be implying. Edit: Point of which is, I think we agree with each other so I don't get the over the top sarcastic celebration

[@Froggo9000]

@@micayahritchie7158 Oh sorry I wasn't trying to be sarcastic

[@micayahritchie7158]

@@Froggo9000 oh my bad. Thanks I guess

[@majarimennamazerinth5753]

the scientific method itself is a construct for sure---and it's the most useful construct that humanity has ever made

[@andrewmayo9400]

I love it when you get all hot and bothered over equivocation

[@calimerohnir3311]

treating Science as a Social Construct will always end up with the like of Lysenko

[@Scorpionwacom]

King Crocoduck, please consider to find a designer who might help you with the visuals and good looking typography. The appearance is much more important than you might think-especially for the new viewers. Your work is valuable and it deserves much better design.

[@alexandrupopescu9503]

omfg, these sjw's will attack science now? ffs!

[@job-yw5hm]

not now, this line of thinking has exited since the dawn of science itself.

[@alexandrupopescu9503]

job Reneman i know, but with the advent of sjw's it is more dangerous now.

[@job-yw5hm]

not really. I don't think it's the sjw line of thinking that makes it dangerous. If you really want to assign a culprit for why the anti-science movement is as strong as it is right now I would go for the internet, as it allows for easy bubble-creation and communication between otherwise fringe groups.

[@Sebastian-hg3xc]

This has been going on for years btw. Postmodernism is well established in academia. Your children will be indoctrinated next.

[@anticorncob6]

Oh yes. It’s the climate denial of the left.

[@Lilitha11]

Honestly, you can't really tell much from a random picture. As the video explains well, you can't really tell a lot from just one fact by itself in isolation, you need context. Which we do not have for this class, we only have a single sentence up on the board. The video is still useful, as some people might wonder about that question. However, some people in the comments sure seem really worked up over this, when there is no real context on what was said in the class. Jumping to the conclusion the professor didn't know what he was talking about, or that the class was a joke, or colleges suck at teaching science or any that is a bit premature to base on the picture someone posted on the internet with no real context.

[@zaephou2843]

This is the first video of yours I properly watched, and I'm thoroughly impressed. Kudos to you sir :)

[@galacticusX]

Your hard and rigid conceptualization of science threatens our lived experience and perpetuates toxic cishet stereotypes.

[@remielpollard787]

Can't tell if trolling or just stupid.

[@thulyblu5486]

Poe's law is your friend... or is it?

[@kenlee5509]

Rigid is your friend, rigorous;y applied.

[@peppermintgal4302]

+GalacticusX Not sure how "rigid" conceptualization of science is related at all to toxic cishet stereotypes. Not sure it threatens lived experience...I find skepticism prevents people from, say, giving all their life savings to a medium, and a "non rigid" understanding of science is the very antithesis of skepticism.

[@doombybbr]

"Your very specific definition of science makes it hard for us to make arguments from anecdotes and here is an insult of people who aren't trans"

[@expressionamidstcacophony390]

I took an STS course, which was basically on whether technology is value-laden or value-neutral. I'm probably overlooking some daft things claimed in the course, but what I remember of it was not horrible. It was basically argued that applied science and technology change stuff, but we can be careless in assuming that those changes represent "societal progress" rather than just trading off problems.

[@naughteedesign]

yes but do yu no de wei?

[@KingCrocoduck]

QUEEN QUEEN QUEEN QUEEN

[@SmashedHatProject]

*click* *click* *click* *click* *click* *click*

[@peppermintgal4302]

*Clicking intensifies*

[@hencrazy]

but wat if de wei is a sosial construc

[@naughteedesign]

de wei mey b a simyoulashun

[@miket4071]

In our postmodern time the term “science” is becoming politically fashionable. Perhaps, the Constructal paradigm (evolution transcending domain) may help expedite civil evolution on a global scale. See “The Science of Rights” presentation at the conference having the KZbin title: “T02 W107 Michael Takac | Thermodynamics 2.0 | 2020”

[@albertbrennaman5605]

I don't think you understand the concept of 'social construct'

[@KingCrocoduck]

17:35

[@KingCrocoduck]

also see Note 2

[@albertbrennaman5605]

+King Crocoduck great, since your so special. Please elaborate to me how the paragdim, episteme, thought collective, habitus, actor-network, republic, reserach programme or whatever metaphor you want to use updates their theoretical propositions when these come to an intellectual standstill? Look, its easy to piss on SJW types that use the 'just a social construct' narrative to further their own political agenda. However, just because they are political motivated does not mean they don't have a point. P.S. no you still haven't grasp the notion of a social construct

[@KingCrocoduck]

That question was addressed extensively in the video both in Part 1 during the discussion about paradigm shifts and Part 3 during objection 1.

[@albertbrennaman5605]

+King Crocoduck I concur, with your sentiment in note 2. However, you are getting into some VERY diffcult semantic territory here. Something which replying things over a KZbin comment feed does not serve justice. kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z2fIn2dnaL-eb7s Furthermore, just because science is a social construct does not imply that we currently have better alternatives to predictably approximate facts about reality. However, the proposition of what a 'fact' is, is always contingent upon the theory.

[@Villain.van.Bobbov]

The starting section with the definitions and proposition space are fascinating (especially how you elegantly avoid spicy topics such as 'truth' and 'observer-independent reality'). Is this specifically your work or an adaptation? Where can I read more about this?

[@jlazelle1]

Autism level infinity! [Sips soy latte]

[@__-cx6lg]

jlazelle1 What the fuck?

[@trajan74]

Theory-latedness: Wibbley wobbly facty wackty stuff. Got it.

[@haydenbailey5905]

First!

[@haydenbailey5905]

But seriously, great video

[@TheProfProfessor]

“This could not be any less scientific” - Hermes Conrad

[@Fudmottin]

When this video showed up on my recommended videos list, I was afraid it would be another Flat Earth video that denies every aspect of reality. Boy was I pleasantly surprised! This was an excellent presentation. Subscribed.

[@DouglasSilva-bv2om]

great video and as a social constructionist i have a few comments. my purpose here is not disproof your ideas, but put some things in perspective. First of all, I agree with most of your criticism with my fellows constructivists, and for the sake of clarity I shall define myself. I do not believe that science is a social construct by the means that is made by social actors, after all that is a hollow statement. In the other hand, I do not believe either that science is a political mechanism that the elite burgouise use to exclude the minorities. Said that I define my self as the flavour of social constructivist that believe that our social background interfere in the way we made our hypothesis in the possession of our data. I explain this better. Back in my days as a undergrad student in physics I encounter the schwarzchild's solution to the Einstein's Field equations (the one star's solution). As my back then professor and later my grad orienter said and prove, by constructing the schwarzchild space time as the warped product with a S^1-like manifold to represent time, the solution naturally encapsulated the black hole region without the need of the Kruskal's extension. I don't know your background but that mathematically means that thinking of time in a cyclical way helps you to understand the first solution to the EFE. Said that , I connect to my idea. In the European tradition of thought we view time as a linear thing, so is natural to the germanics to translate their idea of nature in this way. But in another hand, for some African tradition, time is a cyclical thing and therefore one might say that if was some Congolese trying to solve the EFE, he or she would put this idea in his work, like somehow a fingerprint of his/her background. That last bit was totally expecuoative, but I think you would agree with me that is a plausible thing. Nowadays as a university researcher I work with category theory (a really beautiful subject in mathematics that tries to somehow unify some maths concepts) and it is experimentally proven to me that my intuition is what guide me to research and then the formalism takes place, just like a physicist (except for the formalism part, if I may joke with my fellows physicists here) so it seems natural to me that your background influences your work in inumerous ways. Again, I have no intention to change your mind, but that is my interpretation in that social background affects in science(or even mathematics) Sorry for the long and poorly written comment, because English is not even my third language. Great job, saudations from Brazil.

[@darkbeastzero]

i agree with you, but i'm sympathetic to some of the arguments presented by the people who argue that science is a social construct. i think they've reached the wrong conclusion after looking at the facts - that human history is full of people oppressing each other and trying to frame things in ways that are advantageous for them and the people who they identify with. for instance, take phrenology or social darwinism, which despite being considered pseudo science now was seen as legitimate scientific models for some time. not only that, but these so called "sciences" were used to justify all kinds of shitty political decisions. where does funding for scientific research come from, and who determines what subjects are worthy of further investigation? if it's publicly funded, who is that public, how are they democratically represented, and what are the biases in that system, and so on. i think the social / political dimension of science often does get ignored by people who think of science as some kind of pure pursuit disconnected from other dimensions of human experience. i take issue with scientists who don't consider the social, political, and ethical implications of their work. that's how we get Dr. Mengels or the Tuskagee experiments. I do think however that these problems need social / political responses rather than trying to create different scientific models based on people's different subjective life experiences.

[@alexj7440]

Nobody is trying to create completely new models, but rather to bring about a greater understanding of science in relation to society. The only reason to pretend science isn’t a social construct is to protect your ego because of an obsession with one’s own perceived rationality.