The scientific process has been so corrupted by signaling and politics that outside the hard sciences, most of what is called “science” these days, especially mainstream opinion at universities, is less entangled with reality then most religions. At least the religions have been around long enough to be subject memetic selection.
They produce results that work, even for people that don’t want to believe them. At least, in most parts of the hard sciences—I don’t know about the depths of string theory or cosmology.
Can’t find the link offhand, but there’s some interesting metaanalysis of medical-scientific journals and a few other fields that strongly suggests even the hard sciences in general aren’t immune to this.
On any reasonable operational definition of “less entangled with reality than most religions”, you are ridiculously wrong in claiming that medicine fits the description, and I think Hanson might agree. (I’m less certain about this with regard to certain subfields like stroke rehabilitation, certain sub-subfields in nutrition, etc., but I’m talking about the weighted accuracy of the sorts of activities that Western MDs perform, that are taught in Western medical schools, etc.)
EDIT: Full disclosure: I’m a pharmacy student, so it would be moderately devastating to my sense of worth if you were right. Still.
The scientific process has been so corrupted by signaling and politics that outside the hard sciences, most of what is called “science” these days, especially mainstream opinion at universities, is less entangled with reality then most religions. At least the religions have been around long enough to be subject memetic selection.
how do you know this isnt happening in hard sciences?
They produce results that work, even for people that don’t want to believe them. At least, in most parts of the hard sciences—I don’t know about the depths of string theory or cosmology.
Can’t find the link offhand, but there’s some interesting metaanalysis of medical-scientific journals and a few other fields that strongly suggests even the hard sciences in general aren’t immune to this.
Which soft sciences do you have in mind? (I’d say “name three” but that would come off as confrontational.)
For example: economics, psychology, sociology, possibly even medicine (see Hason’s discussion of it).
On any reasonable operational definition of “less entangled with reality than most religions”, you are ridiculously wrong in claiming that medicine fits the description, and I think Hanson might agree. (I’m less certain about this with regard to certain subfields like stroke rehabilitation, certain sub-subfields in nutrition, etc., but I’m talking about the weighted accuracy of the sorts of activities that Western MDs perform, that are taught in Western medical schools, etc.)
EDIT: Full disclosure: I’m a pharmacy student, so it would be moderately devastating to my sense of worth if you were right. Still.
Evidence: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/were-only-human/74794.html