Ethan Siegel: Even the most successful scientific theories imaginable will, by their very nature, have a limited range of validity. But we can theorize whatever we like, and when a new theory meets the following three criteria…
Science
Study: Psychiatric diagnoses are “scientifically meaningless”
People can certainly derive help from their relationship with a psychiatrist but that is an entirely different matter from saying that the science is sound. As science buckles under the strain of trying to be a secular religion, it pays to get things like this straight.
Tom Gilson: Psychology almost never gets religion right
Some of us remember back when religious figures were urged to make some sort of accommodation with psychology. Now that psychology has largely become one big Sokal hoax, it’s hard to see why anyone would bother.
Religious Nones drawn to the occult (what did you expect?)
This predilection for occultism over philosophically argued religion will of course impact sciences. Indeed, it already does. Look at the number of stories we’ve been running here lately about science journals slowly making social justice warrior concerns equivalent to research.
Guardian axed science blog, spreads sciencey rumors instead
It’s difficult for popular science media to be more interested in facts than the public or the science establishment is. If the Guardian readers would really rather hear about “toxic America,” the paper doesn’t need a science section.
Dilbert’s creator, Scott Adams, gives lessons in being a troll for science
“A troll should never give reasons for what he ‘understands.’ What matters is the attitude.”
Feynman, says Massimo Pigliucci, is wrong about beauty and truth in science
Massimo Pigliucci: But as the German theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder has pointed out (also in Aeon), there is absolutely no reason to think that simplicity and beauty are reliable guides to physical reality. She is right for a number of reasons.
Why scientists tend to dismiss well-supported ideas that lie outside the paradigm
The problem is that people can come to think of approved stagnation as a duty and stagnating as a virtue. If a genius comes along, with new ideas, they have lost the habit of listening with expectation.
At one time, witchcraft was considered a Halloween hoot…
Wait till you catch one of the fashionable witches also fronting the idea that we should all trust science. You can at least enjoy a sense of the ridiculous.
Michael Egnor: The cowardice of science organizations on when life begins
“Scientists who do understand and embrace the truth about the beginning of human life are generally too cowardly to press the issue. It’s an enormous scandal.”
J. P. Moreland on when it is right to reject “science”
For example, “The presence of a band of highly trained, academically qualified scholars with a good track record for publishing in top journals or with highly regarded book publishers, and who are unified in rejecting the view held by even a vast majority of the relevant experts. “
A science writer considers the cost of science functioning as an inquisition
Case in point, David Bohm. In reality, just about everything except non-materialism is forgiven, despite the history.
Copernicus: National Geographic tries to get the history right
Setting the story of the heliocentric conception of the universe in the context of its time is more interesting than TV talking point.
Ten thinkers tell us what post-modernism means
To judge from the flow of verbiage, it spells little good for the sciences. One rather inclines, in part, to Steven Weinberg’s succinct view,given last: Alas, it was too late. I may be just out of the loop, but it seems to me now that for scientists to argue against constructivism is beating a dead […]
A “gender non-binary dino” is not a useful teaching moment
But the Woke war on science, now that IS real.