In the comments to The Difference Between Doubt and Post Modernist Insanity – Part III, there is this response from russ reina,
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.”
– Richard Feynman.Please explain to me the difference between an Expert and a Scientist.
The quote is not, Scientist is the belief in the ignorance of Experts.
Science is a process for learning how the world works.
Scientists are people who use, or attempt to use, science to try to learn how the world works.
Scientists are fallible.
Science requires a lot of skill. Scientists sometimes do design experiments so poorly that the experiments will not provide an accurate answer to the hypothesis being tested.
These are mistakes made by scientists.
These are not mistakes made by science.
–
If an airplane crashes due to a pilot’s error, does that mean that airplanes are faulty?
If a gun is used to commit murder (intentional misuse – unless you think that murder is appropriate use), does that mean that guns are faulty?
If a patient dies, because of a doctor’s error, does that mean that medicine is faulty?
If a scientific study is invalidated, because of the misapplication of the scientific method by a scientist a scientist’s error, does that mean that science is faulty?
Of course not.
Only a fool would believe that a tool is faulty for not anticipating and correcting for every possible misuse of that tool.
However, there are plenty of people who will answer yes to some, or all, of the questions above. These people believe that anything that can be misused is faulty. They believe in the creation of Foolproof equipment.
Foolproof is impossible.
–
Quoting Feynman himself might be useful.
Are you a scientist;
or just an expert?
You keep misinterpreting Feynman’s words.
You keep asking the wrong questions.
.
First off, I think Feynman himself would agree there are only questions.
But I appreciate your definition of science, it helps me see more clearly your views.
I’d still like to see how you define (or Feynman for that matter) would define Expert, and rather than wait and then ask, I’ll chance asking wrong 😉 now and inquire would many of the Experts Feynman refers to be Scientists?
firetender,
I disagree.
I think that Feynman makes it clear that he believes that there are answers. Although many of those answers will be, I don’t know, not all of the answers will be, I don’t know.
All of the answers should prompt more questions, but that does not mean that there are only questions.
Will the current treatment always be the best treatment for this illness?
No.
Better treatments will be developed as more is learned.
Is the current treatment dramatically improving outcomes?
Yes.
Is that an answer?
Absolutely.
Will there be better answers when more is known?
Of course.
Expecting better answers in the future does not mean that we should rush to apply everything we mistakenly, but overly optimistically, think we know.
Expecting better answers in the future does not mean that the well understood science correctly applied is not an answer – the best answer currently available.
Not all answers need to be complete. If we demand that, we will have few answers, but we will still have answers.
If we believe that there are no answers, we will never get to any better answers in the future.
If we believe that there are no answers, we will have no way of discriminating among many possible answers.
–
I would define an expert as one who has a lot of experience in a field. Someone looked to for advice by many in the field.
Of course. Experts exist in all fields.
Experts are probably our greatest source of myths.
When experts pretend to know/understand more than they do know/understand, experts create myths.
When non-experts make the same mistakes, they are much more likely to be ignored. Experts are not generally ignored. Therefore, an expert is almost a prerequisite for myth creation.
I have written more than a little bit about experts ignoring the limits of the evidence they had available to them.
Here is just some of what I have written on the topic –
Narrative Fallacy I
How did this happen? – Research
Narrative Fallacy II
CAST and Narrative Fallacy
C A S T and Narrative Fallacy comment from Shaggy
Some Research Podcasting Comments
Shaggy Comments on Some Research Podcasting Comments.
Spine Immobilization in Penetrating Trauma: More Harm Than Good?
EMS EdUCast – Journal Club 2: Episode 43
Education Problems, Autism, and Vaccines
tried to edit my last to include this but I am not the scientific mind that can figure such stuff out;
“Scientists are fallible.
Science requires a lot of skill. Scientists sometimes do design experiments so poorly that the experiments will not provide an accurate answer to the hypothesis being tested.
These are mistakes made by scientists.
These are not mistakes made by science.”
I’m hearing you say that science is pure,
but those who execute it are not.
Since the Scientists are human and fallible,
then they can misrepresent science.
Science is constantly overturning Experts, especially other Scientists
Why? Because Scientists are fallible!.
…and Scientists pretty much think they are Experts until…
Science overturns what they do.
And it is other Scientists that do the Science that
overturns flawed approaches/interpretations/utilizations. etc.
as defined by the other scientists.
So, for me, I’m lost in an endless loop. Science begins and ends with the human being. The human being, as you pointed out, is flawed. Not only are humans the ones that define it, but they execute it, interpret it and apply it. That is, of course, until another human being who we call a Scientist comes along and overturns it.
I wholeheartedly agree “Foolproof is impossible” because anything emanating from human beings is anything but Foolproof!
Human beings, by definition fallible, are those beings through which Science is expressed, therefore, according to you, Science CANNOT be pure.
I don’t want to get hung up on this because I, personally, feel comfortable in my understanding that, as is the human being, Science is dynamic.
I also believe that there is more to be seen than that which our Science claims to understand.
It must be so because that is the nature of our humanity.
russ reina,
Except that you assume that all of science will be overturned.
Not even most of science will be overturned.
Even when applied by fallible scientists, most of science will not be overturned.