-- conflict with basic scientific principles that are well-studied and well-understood (often the proponents don’t even understand that what they are suggesting conflicts with such principles)
Given the Fermi paradox the existence of aliens doesn’t violate scientific principles. Yet aliens are outside of what you can study scientifically.
-- have been well-studied themselves and already found to be false
When it comes to that class we don’t really talk about judging them “prior to empirical investigation”.
-- have been enthusiastically promoted by nonscientists
No, it’s a Bayseian update based on “the probability that something is true, conditional on being enthusiastically promoted by nonscientists and rejected or ignored by scientists, is really really low”. That’s what you use Bayseian updates for. Science works; it may not do so with complete certainty, but the odds heavily favor it.
It’s no more about status than wanting to go to a medical doctor instead of a faith healer is about status.
A lot of things get ignored by scientists because you don’t get funding for studying the topic. Xrisk would be a good example. FHI finds it hard to raise money via the traditional way for the subject.
Science works
It works through empirical investigation. It doesn’t do much prior to empirical investigation.
As a heuristic, I suspect ignoring things ignored by most scientists will actually work pretty well for you. Its not an unreasonable assumption to say that “given no other information, the majority of scientists dismissing a subject lowers my probability that that subject has any grounding”. Thats a sensible thing to do, and does indeed use a simple Bayesian logic.
Note that we essentially do this for all science, in that we tend to accept the scientific consensus. We can’t be subject specialists in everything, so while we can do a bit of reading, its probably fine to just think: what most scientists think is probably the closest to correct I am capable of being without further study.
As a heuristic, I suspect ignoring things ignored by most scientists will actually work pretty well for you. Its not an unreasonable assumption to say that “given no other information, the majority of scientists dismissing a subject lowers my probability that that subject has any grounding”.
If you don’t have any information then that might be true. Usually you however do have some information.
Note that we essentially do this for all science, in that we tend to accept the scientific consensus.
That’s only true for fields that are studied enough for there to be an evidence based scientific consensus.
Given the Fermi paradox the existence of aliens doesn’t violate scientific principles. Yet aliens are outside of what you can study scientifically.
When it comes to that class we don’t really talk about judging them “prior to empirical investigation”.
It looks like it. It’s about status.
No, it’s a Bayseian update based on “the probability that something is true, conditional on being enthusiastically promoted by nonscientists and rejected or ignored by scientists, is really really low”. That’s what you use Bayseian updates for. Science works; it may not do so with complete certainty, but the odds heavily favor it.
It’s no more about status than wanting to go to a medical doctor instead of a faith healer is about status.
A lot of things get ignored by scientists because you don’t get funding for studying the topic. Xrisk would be a good example. FHI finds it hard to raise money via the traditional way for the subject.
It works through empirical investigation. It doesn’t do much prior to empirical investigation.
As a heuristic, I suspect ignoring things ignored by most scientists will actually work pretty well for you. Its not an unreasonable assumption to say that “given no other information, the majority of scientists dismissing a subject lowers my probability that that subject has any grounding”. Thats a sensible thing to do, and does indeed use a simple Bayesian logic.
Note that we essentially do this for all science, in that we tend to accept the scientific consensus. We can’t be subject specialists in everything, so while we can do a bit of reading, its probably fine to just think: what most scientists think is probably the closest to correct I am capable of being without further study.
If you don’t have any information then that might be true. Usually you however do have some information.
That’s only true for fields that are studied enough for there to be an evidence based scientific consensus.
There is an interesting exception—if you are scientist yourself.
Bayseian calculation doesn’t work on “a lot”, it works on the odds, and the odds are much lower for such things.