Post-Kuhnian Philosophy of Science: Paul Feyerabend (2 of 2)

[@felipelopes3171]

As a trained physicist (not philosopher), I always thought the common objection about doctors being creative with Feyerabend's treatment to be one of the most obvious misreadings of what he wrote. The reason he thinks science should be free of methods is essentially because it works, so it doesn't need one. In the history of physics, you see some cases where scientists faked results and got to theories through completely wrong reasoning, but in the end it didn't matter, because others could see it worked and rationalized it later. That's where science's value comes from. So, what he's really saying is that science does have a claim to truth, but it cannot provide any clue to how it arrived at it. In the case of the doctor, what Feyerabend would ask is that if he already knows how to cure his disease, then do what works, but if he does not know, he should use any resources he has to try to cure it, even if he has to break established protocols, that's not crazy at all.

[@Korean_Million_Youtuber]

Thank you so much for all your hard work! -Love from South Korea

[@mikevsamuel]

Great video. One correction, around 8 minutes you talk about Thalidomide "passing peer review and the standards we have at the F.D.A." It did not make it past the U.S. F.D.A. which is why the U.S. had far fewer cases than other countries. Most cases in the U.S. were traced to samples distributed for limited investigational purposes prior to approval.

[@SisyphusRedeemed]

Thank you for correction. Now that you say it, I think I do remember hearing that.

[@JAMES-ig2gk]

you may already know the story but for anyone who doesn’t. We almost personally have to thank Frances Oldham Kelsey. She was the prominent voice of dissent and due to her, additional research was done demonstrating the effects on new born infants in Europe. A very Feyerabendian story. Not sure if Feyerabendian is the preferred term.

[@earthjustice01]

Exactly, I was thinking of the space program too . Imagine the huge amount of resources that are being taken away from more human-scale technology to fuel the grandiose visions of space colonisation.

[@CosmoShidan]

Why not just use our resources to develop better technology that is non-pollutant? Why go up in space to stuff working people into 2--mile-long tin cans and then drop them into Sydney?

[@mike1122-o6c]

Wonderful. Listening for the first time in 2023, I recognized the backlash against vaccines and reasonable Covid measures, while large groups of people embraced the deadly pseudo-science of folk remedies. This was just what the presenter describes in the warnings about the democracy-science tension in the last segment.

[@RobertWGreaves]

As important as science is, it is not as if we have grasped it. This is why it is helpful to be aware of the various debates as to what constitutes useful science.

[@morpheuskibbe]

As a minor point of clarification. Thalidomide was never approved by the FDA. it was approved in Europe, not america. which doesn't really alter your point much so eh.... also glad you finally got to continue this series.

[@islandletters]

One major drawback with Feyerabend's call for "follow any lead" is prevalent p-hacking. I understand his warning of only looking where we think the interesting stuff is, but looking for patterns where there are none would lead to an even larger percentage of scientific findings that actually turn out to be wrong. What he fails to identify or describe is a system that is open and at the same time not prone to p-hacking.

[@OKEKOBEB]

there is a subtle distinction here. Feyerabend deals with creating the scientific ideas not doctoring the data when it comes to publishing.

[@frankienbloo1723]

The "white noise" criticism isn't actually a criticism at all. There is no evidence which shows people would just go bonkers if we let them think what they want to think. In fact, there is significant, tangible evidence which shows just the contrary. The fault here is thinking people who don't have a college level education are just too stupid to figure out how to live without the anointed enlightened. To make a tangible example: A similar supposed problem comes up within the framework of social organization of common pool resources. Originally it was thought that if we didn't centralize them through some governing body, then all chaos would break lose and society would crumble. A "white noise" problem. In reality, just the opposite proved to be the case. Eleanor Ostrom (first woman to receive a nobel prize in economics) was able to show further decentralization actually increased the efficiency of these common-pool resources. Fundamentally because people have the freedom to associate with ideas that work for them. In short and in this case, people vote with their feet. There is no "one way" to organize, just as there is no "one way" to do science. Competition of ideas leads to good ideas - not dogma. web.pdx.edu/~nwallace/EHP/OstromPolyGov.pdf

[@cliffordhodge1449]

I think in a well-educated society, the limitations of science will be understood, yet it will be appreciated for the very valuable intellectual tool it is. As with religions, the problem arises when mainstream people who are presented as doing science are really bad at it. I have seen far too many in health care who have a serious lack of understanding of meta-theory, who are merely repeating dogma fed them in school or by the clinic they work for. In the name of health (not overall well-being necessarily) selling of large sodas has been banned; in the name of medical progress, curare was experimented with as a surgical general anesthetic on children; to achieve "standardization" they give you those ridiculous scales for assigning a value of 1-10 to your pain level - you are being asked to map the members of a set with cardinality infinity (imaginable pain levels) onto the members of a set with a mere 10 integers. And consider how many citizens would know about the grue/bleen problem for induction. It just requires educating people so they can see science as probably the best fallible method for collective pursuit of practical advantages and values.

[@nestorvalentsuela4982]

One issue. The creationism is bad but actually if we focus on ID that is the real implementation of Kuhn and Fayeraband idea. Challenging the status que which deserves to be challenged.

[@muramanaalchemy8254]

Regarding “Creation Myths” : What if society stopped regarding it as an evolutionary science and instead perceived the myths of religion as a social science. In my mind they detail more of the Evolution of human psychology rather than biology.

[@evanm2911]

Social scientists already do. But the members of the society still hold myths and stories and science as truth. Cool. Pushing against creationism and entrenching into what boils down to "Scientism" has led to rhetorical campaigns against evidence of and for evolutionary theory. If the creationists want to teach creationism: cool, good on them. The alternative explanation will still exist. It's become a threat because it was treated as a threat and gained influence

[@hauntologicalwittgensteini2542]

So anthropology of religion

[@alvaroballon7133]

Super clear to me that Feyerabend had not gone through a pandemic when he wrote this 😂

[@JDeac12]

Your videos are great! I wonder if you would make a video about scientific naturalism/foundationalism someday :)

[@SisyphusRedeemed]

Glad you like them, thanks for saying so. There's a lecture on naturalism vs. foundationalism in the works. Stay tuned.

[@grignardreagent5296]

The FDA did NOT approve thalidomide. Thalidomide is a classic example of the success and importance of the FDA....

[@SisyphusRedeemed]

Yes indeed, you are correct. It was approved in many countries, but not the U.S. My mistake.

[@grignardreagent5296]

@@SisyphusRedeemed this was a great video BTW.

[@Hesperell]

All of these criticisms just beg the question. "Yeah, this may all be well and good in the abstract, but since scientists are always right when it comes to important things, it is too dangerous to allow people to think creatively when it actually matters." Hence global house arrest "because science."

[@leonardotavaresdardenne9955]

Oh wow and it works EXACTLY has expected. This Po-Mo "anything goes" angle really just allows for people to say dumb shit like you did, but somehow still fancy themselves has intelectuals.

[@CosmoShidan]

If we did take Feyerabend seriously, could his view of science be considered science as anthropological?

[@thevanillamaster8103]

The Virgin Logical Positivist vs the Chad Epistemological Anarchist

[@user-vg7zv5us5r]

6:10 Hey-hey, people. Sseth here.

[@flavioamaral2052]

The question about creationism in science classes is not something to be decided by the demarcation work. It is to be decided politically. If we trully believe in democracy, then it is not up to an elite of scientists to decide what is to be taught at school, but up to the will of the majority. If the scientists want to be part of it, it is not by explaining to society that creationism is pseudoscience. This is theoretical mumbo jumbo. They have to speak the language of the people and convince them that other topics suit best in the school curriculum.

[@3x4architecture77]

Imagine watching this is 2021

[@samandrastek]

Prescient

[@Knaeben]

Neoliberal capitalism has pretty much solved all these problems. You just hire scientists and tell them what results you want, then pay a lot of money to drown out anyone who complains. That way you always get the results you want.

[@okonx003]

Paaaaaandemic. Sorry, I i just wanted to point out the elephant in the room. However, if I'm understanding youre interpretation right. Fereyabend wouldn't say that we need to ignore the advice of scientific experts and that the political arguments against things like wearing masks might be just as problematic as a dogmatic worship of science?

[@Hesperell]

I don't know what he would say, but the actual takeaway we should have as that we actually should be concerned when every politician unilaterally imposes unprecedented and extremely draconian measures on the populace in ways that cause serious direct harm to their well-being, throwing millions worldwide into abject poverty, driving millions to suicide by forbidding the things which make life worth living, causing wealth inequality to skyrocket, undoing decades of economic progress, completely ignoring and showing actual open contempt toward human and civil rights, shredding constitutions, persecuting religions, enforcing with brutal methods of policing, and cementing a ruling class defined by their ability to thrive under these conditions over and against a working class unable to do so, and when the politicians do these things completely against democratic norms, justifying them by saying "we're following the science," without themselves having any serious understanding of science, and while the scientific experts they employ are overspecialized and untrained in the kinds of broad ethical, legal, social scientific, and philosophical considerations that these decisions require. And all the while the IFLScience crowd, fawning before scientific advisors who stand at the right hand of the most powerful rulers in the world, proclaim against the evidence directly in their face, that somehow science is "marginalized" (Someone makes that claim in this comment section! The idol to which every single politician in the world offers blood sacrifices seven times every day, "following The Science, following The Science" like a broken record every day for *ten months*--that god is *marginalized!* This is the most delusional claim anyone has ever made in the history of the world! It would be as if to say Catholicism was marginalized in medieval France!) They say this because some working-class guy in rural Texas went to the hardware store without a mask. Like everybody did last year, when his town looked no different than it does today, except that people now wear masks because The Scientist said to do so. Therefore, because a common peasant somewhere in the country uttered a small blasphemy against Science, the fact we are all in a global hygenic biopower regime never before seen in history is completely erased, and parisans of Lord Science entertain wild and irrational delusions of persecution and powerlessness. This mass hysteria is what you get when Science becomes a presence in the mind of the people more powerful than any god has ever been. We must defend ourselves from this Science.

[@The_golden_charlie]

Science can become an ideology akin to religion, that is the danger..

[@Flamingbob25]

I would say that Feyerabend's separation of science and state is insane ... Besides the fact the in the United States at least there is absolutely no concern that there will be any takeover by science, given the incredibly marginalized place science holds in government, his entire premise makes no sense. The idea is that if we had more power in science then lay people would somehow be made worse off? I'd love for him to illustrate any possible mechanism for this because I content there is none. You mentioned abortion rights as something religious people speak on because we know from science that life does not begin at conception and the religious idea that it does has a lot to do with sexism rather than actually caring about babies. So I would say for women at least, a society with more science would be better then I a society with more religion.

[@YannParodi]

"We know from science" is never a problem, yet 'We know from science ... therefore we should do ...' sounds always authoritarian in my ears, dismissing other sources of knowledge (But the standard image of Science people have, seems to be limited to the natural sciences.) I think this is why Feyerabend suggested the separation of state and science. It is because some have the philosophical assumption that somehow natural sciences will always be superior to any other source of knowledge (revelation, tradition...).

[@CosmoShidan]

Feyerabend is criticizing the kind of science that is utilized for the sake of profits. That is, the corporate and war profiteering kind, such as military weaponry, cosmetics, construction, chemicals, mining, cleaning aids, plastics, oil, agriculture, nuclear weapons, and so on. In other words, it's science aligned with for the sake of the super-rich and military elites. The same rich people and elites who also align with the politicians. Hence what he worries about science eventually falling into the hands of politics. and why we need a separation.

[@earthjustice01]

Have you ever heard of Technocracy or Eugenics? Both were pretty bad ideas that mixed science with politics.

[@heidiccvincentz]

lmfao 4 years later....

[@leonardotavaresdardenne9955]

@@heidiccvincentz horseshoe theory is real. Once you ingest enough Po-Mo you just become a reactionary

[@mduzondi]

Garbage 🗑️? I'm not sure about that, you seem to fall into scientific dogmatism yourself, good lectures though 🤝