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Deleted member 126221
Unconfirmed Member
Oh my. Where do you even think the scientific method comes from?
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"Scientific Facts are Social Constructs" - is this true?
- Thread starter gfxtwin
- Start date
Oh my. Where do you even think the scientific method comes from?
Not, actually, what the slide says?
I mean as someone who teaches the history of science I can point out that the slide isn't a troll and it isn't absurd. It's to address your knee jerk understanding of this as false. It's to challenge student's unthinking commitment to some childish conception of what science is. The fact that you think this is so absurd is the very problem that the statement is addressing. The fact that we've socialized some very problematic norms about what science is.
BlackDoomShadow
Member
Incredibly fitting Rick & Morty avatar.
At the end of the day, I'm not scared that philosophers and artists are going to send me to a gas chamber.
Math is a poor example because it only exists in abstract truisms that manifest themselves in the physical world.
A better example of explaining the OP would be saying "the Earth is round" is a fact. Well what do you mean by round? Flat earthers who believe the Earth is a disc with ice walls at the edges would agree that it is, in a sense that any circular or elliptical object is round. Calling the Earth a sphere is closer to objective reality, but that is partially wrong because a sphere is mathematically defined as 3d object in which all border points are equidistant from a center. So a better answer would be that the Earth is an irregular ellipsoid, being a 3D curved object of varying radii with various imperfections of mountains, oceans, etc. But that definition is verbose and kind of useless because it requires so much explanation and in a sense takes us further away from the objective reality of the Earth, because every one of those words in that definition has varying social constructs and meanings that means that every person who reads that definition will come away with a different understanding of it. So what we commonly call facts are essentially dumbed-down consensus understandings built upon years of careful study of our objective reality, but no matter what we do we will never be able to remove the social constructs of language that are the basic, flawed building blocks that make up that definition.
Otherwise, think of Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Objective reality is the objects and in studying them and discovering/creating "facts" about those objects through their shadows, we are one step removed from the objects unable to ever genuinely grasp the objects' forms in their totality.
paperboywriter
Member
Prof makes up bold claim on one PowerPoint slide and all of the sudden universities are teaching 'emotion over reason'. (Whatever that even means)
This one photo could also be taken completely out of context and our entire discussion could be misguided.
This is as dumb as the claim that universities are save spaces for students that dont want to be offended.
I have a feeling that non of those people who say those kind of things actually went to university.
I call bullshit.
This one photo could also be taken completely out of context and our entire discussion could be misguided.
This is as dumb as the claim that universities are save spaces for students that dont want to be offended.
I have a feeling that non of those people who say those kind of things actually went to university.
I call bullshit.
the-pi-guy
Member
Using this definition:
You could argue that pretty much everything is a social construct. Trees are, because the category of trees was developed by society.
Someone else made a comment about reality also being something similar. With reality, it is possible that all of this is a figment of our imaginations or that we are actually in the matrix.
But there's no point in living like that.
Even if something is a social construct, that doesn't mean it doesn't have validity or importance.
Science is based on observable facts in our reality.
And scientific theories are the best explanation for the set of facts.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/social-construct
You could argue that pretty much everything is a social construct. Trees are, because the category of trees was developed by society.
Someone else made a comment about reality also being something similar. With reality, it is possible that all of this is a figment of our imaginations or that we are actually in the matrix.
But there's no point in living like that.
Even if something is a social construct, that doesn't mean it doesn't have validity or importance.
Science is based on observable facts in our reality.
And scientific theories are the best explanation for the set of facts.
Cymbal Head
Banned
No human has or ever will have direct access to any kind of objective reality.
Scientific methods are, so far, the most accurate methods for describing and predicting the universe that we have. But the idea that those things are important in the first place is itself constructed. There's nothing inherently virtuous about being able to build satellites, even if I think GPS rules.
Nobody tell Sheroking that math is a type of philosophy
edit: too late
edit: too late
King Tubby
Member
This is a really pedantic statement to make. You'd just be swapping the meanings of the glyphs. The logical statement being made would be true regardless of whether or not society accepts it, that's just how mathematics works.
Mathematical foundation contrarianism aside.
You weren't looking up the definition, you uncritically dumped a bunch of pretty bad definitions as a weak appeal to the great authority of dictionary.com.
A humanistic approach would have been positing a definition and arguing for it.
Haha - this is confusing to me. Even if enough people decided that 2+2=7 tomorrow, would that make it a fact? Or maybe I should use the word truth? Would that make it true?
If flat-earthers somehow find a way to outnumber round-earthers, does that make it true? (Of course not, but it's an interesting thing to consider what would actually happen).
You seem a little perturbed and I'm not sure how you would know whether or not I was looking up the definition. It implies that you think I'm lying, which I don't appreciate. I honestly looked it up because I thought fact == truth and to me whether or not you believe something has no bearing on whether or not it is true. When presented with something counter to that, I thought, oh, perhaps my understanding of the word "fact" is incorrect, I should check. So I did.
No, actually it's 101 basics of reasoned thought. It's only an affront if you're making the mistake that construct == not real.
Well, to use an example of the past something can be true, and not a "science fact" because relativity hasn't been discovered yet.
And people spend decades fighting for their interpretation of observed phenomena and sometimes they win people over and sometimes they don't, and occasionally they were right but no one agreed until much later, and when no one agrees, you can be right but it's not a "science fact", right?
Basically, this is pretty complicated and people barging in to say this out of context, nuanceless slide is bollocks are falling for a trap set by a doofus who's more interested in gotchas than learning.
Are you calling formalism "Mathematical foundation contrarianism" as some attempt to deride it? The level of discourse here is just atrocious.
Science as a discipline IS a social construct. The principles proven by its practitioners, however, are not.
excelsiorlef
Member
I mean yeah of course it is... this entire topic is silly so I thought I'd have a little fun.
AuthenticM
Member
Checkmate atheists saying the world isn't 6,000 years old and other assortments of people saying the world isn't flat.
lol
LOL
teruterubozu
Member
The professor did exactly what a professor is supposed to do in college - promote discussion and critical thinking like we have here. But people in that class are taking notes like robots. lol.
MetaCircular
Member
Physicists have extremely accurate predictive models of many phenomena.
It doesn't matter who does the experiments, you can predict many results with absurdly high precision. No social agreement required.
Are you calling these results social constructs? Do you fucking deny that there is a physical reality we all live in? Do you deny that we are all bound by the same physical laws?
It doesn't matter who does the experiments, you can predict many results with absurdly high precision. No social agreement required.
Are you calling these results social constructs? Do you fucking deny that there is a physical reality we all live in? Do you deny that we are all bound by the same physical laws?
Why wouldn't it be true? Unlike the flat-earth theory, which can be disproven by looking at the planet from space, the only reason 2+2 does not equal 7 is...because it doesn't. So if society as a collective decides that 2+2 does equal 7, there's no rational for that being wrong either.
Language's only meaning is meta-meaning.
If flat-earthers outnumbered round-earthers then yes, it would be a fact for the majority of the population that the world is flat. It would also be considered true by them. The earth obviously doesnt care about facts or truths and would continue to be round, by that doesnt necessarily matter that much if the majority of observers insist on claiming it to be flat.
Welcome to the wonderful world of philosophy, where up very much can be down (depending on which angle you look at it from).
Really? We've been over this a dozen times already. What is "proven" shifts wildly over time. Some things we can be very sure of for specific ends because of practical applications like cell phones, other things we can't. That facts are agreed upon enough to be bestowed the term "scientific fact" still relies on their being a society in which people are social enough to maintain a consensus.
Again, social construct != false. It just means social construct.
King Tubby
Member
Not at all what I'm referring to.
paperboywriter
Member
Thank you. At least a couple of people getting it
Amibguous Cad
Member
You've gotta move up a level, though. "2+2=4" isn't a fact. "If Peano postulates, then 2+2=4" is. You still have to grant the if-then statement ontological validity divorced from empirical observation. So if we say that any mathematical statement that describes empirical reality is true, then we concede that mathematics has a reality, and true and false statements, independent of its instantiation in physical matter.
excelsiorlef
Member
One can (granted with luck, money and training) observe that the earth is not flat.
You can observe what you call 4 things, and demonstrate how 2 of them put together with another 2 of them makes 4... but if society collectively started saying that 2 and 2 together makes 7... then 7 would become the new 4 (and obviously something else becomes the new 7.. maybe 2) and it would no longer be a fact that 2+2=4
It was asked if 2+2 = 4 is a fact...
It's technically not, and I'm being hideously pedantic here because I can, because in the end what we call 4 is only 4 because that is societal convention... 4 could be anything if we decided it so.... Same with 2.... There is nothing inherently factual about 4... we can change it tomorrow and the world would keep on going as normal, with some early adaption issues of course.
hey_monkey
Banned
Right? I'm sure that wasn't the only slide and that there was a lecture or discussion that went along with it. The slide was meant to be provocative and memorable. Not text-heavy so students would pay attention to everything else happening and not focus on scribbling down notes. It's one of the things we teach new teachers - not to make those huge text-heavy slides if it's avoidable.
This is a great example. Trees are. That we call them trees and make certain associations with the word "tree" and define "trees" with certain characteristics is something we've constructed.
Adjacent to topic:
In the book I referenced above, there's a terrible example of a culturally significant building taken from an indigenous village and rebuilt piece by piece in a museum. But it was rebuilt wrong. Examples of the building exist in their traditional contexts, but now so does this "wrong" building. So they both exist. They are both buildings. Which one is "right?" Who decides? To people at the museum, the one in front of them is probably "right." Just like our textbooks - all written through particular perspectives - are "right." But what's right?
Donna Haraway's work in this area is fascinating, too.
Raven117
Gold Member
Ill agree with that.
If one is operating from the premise (and I guess we all have to in a way) that all perception is a social construct, then so would be "scientific facts."
Fork on the Left
Member
I didn't say I completely agreed with it lol calm down
Sure, I can agree with that. Those are just symbols that represent what we're seeing. But it's still true that if you take 2 things and add 2 more things to that you end up with 7 of them.
Or to be even more freshman philosophy about this: say you have a society that counts groups of things, but dont care that much about the quantity inside each group. They might have two separate groups on one side and combine them with two separate groups on the other side...
... and (quite logically, from their standpoint) conclude that 2+2=1.
I just don't know about throwing the word "scientific" in there then, unless the goal is to be bluntly provocative
Raven117
Gold Member
If only this were true across the board. IMO there should be no sacred cow, no idea left unchallenged.
Seems that this thought as more or less drifted into the grad programs and not that of undergraduate.
Actually yeah, they are social constructs. They use human made method with human made postulates, using human made mathematical tools, deciding that the data is accurate enough to create a theory around, deciding that certain approximations is close enough, and in the end turns with a theory close enough that they cover a lot of the data. Scientific theory is the best knowledge we have, not capital T truth. And this is something that we as humans have agreed on is good enough. Social construct does not equal "fake" or "false".
excelsiorlef
Member
Using flat earthers.. if in 5 years somehow in society flat took on the meaning of round and round took on the meaning of flat... the earth would be flat and we'd be bitching about the stupidity of round earthers... even though nothing in the universe physically changed.
teruterubozu
Member
How dare he use that sacred word!
Perhaps dropping acid should be an academic requirement. LoL!
So, what would be capital T truth?
I wouldn't go that far.
Science is a process through which we are able to construct an increasingly accurate understanding of the reality as it is. The principles you talk about are more like best estimations we people make and are thus subjected to social context.
excelsiorlef
Member
that it's Out There
Hari Seldon
Member
I agree with you but I wouldn't put it that harshly lol.
I'd say if your discipline cannot prove its assertions through repeatable experiments then it is not very useful. This includes a lot of physics as well lol. But still fun to talk about.
This includes the idea that science is a social construct. Ok it is fun to debate, but not useful to assert unless you can prove it. Show me the experiment that proves this, and make sure that it is repeatable.
Something that is probably beyond humankind, outside of pure empiricism
RedSparrows
Member
I don't see the distinction, morally. Philosophers and physicists can both be evil, and both be good.
Technology allows mass murder, ideas permit it.
nelsonroyale
Member
Science is not a homogenous field and the rigour of scientific research is not always equal between the work of different researchers...People talking about science as if it is a bounded thing...Anyway, the statement is somewhat true...Science is a method to describe reality...it isn't reality itself. For instance, we will probably never be able to model all the information and energy flow within a complex ecosystem like a 1x1km of tropical forest, but even if we manage, that is not the thing itself. It is a model... Social research has an added level of subjectivity obviously becuase of social perceptions...
Anyway, I feel like science is often articulated in a pretty simplistic way in the public arena...
Anyway, I feel like science is often articulated in a pretty simplistic way in the public arena...
hey_monkey
Banned
I think this is a rather reductive view. As with most things, I think the answer is much more nuanced when we consider where and when social constructions of knowledge figure in. I would recommend you read Donna Haraway's "Situated Knowledges."