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[Monocle]

Geocentrism, humors, phrenology, etc., at one point were believed to be scientific fact; these truths were molded by measurements and observation and the current understanding and perspective of the world and its workings. Perception and our tools to measure and define our observations have defined what is considered fact for all of human history. Consensus based on continually refined theories and repeatable results decides what is fact. It is through accepted truths and norms that consensus is reached about theories and results, and what is accepted is molded by the social underpinings of the time.

That's a good way to put it.

 

[Dyle]

Physicist Lawrence M. Krauss responded to the picture in the OP:

Way to miss the point professor. A person jumping out the window would be demonstrating the objective reality of gravity, which for the most part lines up with what is defined as the fact of gravity, but is not uniquely demonstrative of the fact of gravity given that the fact of gravity is built upon the social constructs of human language that shift it away from the true form as a manifestation of objective reality. No one says that gravity isn't a fact, just that its status as a fact and part of human knowledge is not the same as its tangible, demonstrable manifestations due to our own subjective readings of the years of research that show it to be truthful. Dude should know better than to muddy the waters with a dumb response free from nuance, especially given the status of scientific illiteracy today

 

[Mael]

Well duh.
We value scientific fact because they're a good way to get a representation of what needs representing.
The whole of science is based on the faith that the very few hypothetical we use to work with are representing something valuable.
If it wasn't a social construct we wouldn't have peer reviews or even scientific consensus which are good tools to use.
Are we supposed to think they're tools given by some kind of God or something?

 

[mokeyjoe]

In that post I was just answering your question. The original reason I brought it up is because historians often use the word the same way mathematicians will sometimes use the word trivial.



Sometimes when people get to a gap in their model or research they will say it's common sense or some variant of that. Generally this happens in talks, but I've seen some form of it in footnotes.



Right, that's why I'm saying it's ironic.



Well most people would say it probably shouldn't be. I generally tell undergrads that finding those spots where people say something to this effect is quite useful in figuring out new avenues of research. It's a prepackaged place to insert yourself into a conversation.



Yes, exactly. That's why it's a handwave.

Lol, well ok, we agree I think. I can't imagine getting away with that in any serious academic context.

 

[The Wart]

What are the differences between the different sciences? Does SSK (sociology of scientific knowledge, I'm presuming, from a quick search) differ from "scientific facts of biology?" Is there a name for "scientific facts" that are based on evidence? Like the sun's position relative to the Earth's? I'm having an incredibly difficult time parsing through the discourse because the terminology and overall nuance of "this science" versus "this science" are confusing. Also, are all types of sciences socially constructed in the same level? Or are other types of sciences truer than others?

You, and I think many others, seem to be treating "social construct" and "based on evidence" to be mutually exclusive, but that is not what is meant when we say science is a social construct. Evidence has to be collected, observed, and interpreted by humans, and those humans are social creatures who exist in societies. It doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Consider the sun's position relative to the earth. You can google it and get a specific number. But is that number the "objective truth"? Take a minute and you can readily think of countless complications -- the Earth is constantly moving around the sun, so obviously the answer can't be just *one* number, for instance, it depends on where Earth is on its orbit. But the Earth's orbit is not constant. Also the Earth and sun are not single points, they are big blobs that are constantly changing albeit maybe in very small ways. So how do you define a distance between those and why that exact definition? And so on and so on and so on. A lot of these issues have very little practical import, but that's precisely because human beings have made decisions regarding what level of detail is important or interesting or useful.

The broader point is that there is a very long, winding road from measurement of the physical world to a "scientific fact" that is widely known and accepted by society.

We value scientific fact because they're a good way to get a representation of what needs representing.

This is basically it, in a nutshell.

 

[Cocaloch]

What are the differences between the different sciences?

They are essentially all totally different fields, made clear by the divergent historical development of Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, that we only retroactively have grouped together. The grouping makes sense because all of the natural sciences do share a lot of traits in common, but even a cursory examination of their history shows that they have wildly different traits and development. The more important question is probably what are the similarities between different sciences. On this front I'd say the disciples practiced by expert communities that take the physical world as their object of study and base their claim to epistemological legitimacy on supposedly replicable experiments.

Does SSK (sociology of scientific knowledge, I'm presuming, from a quick search) differ from "scientific facts of biology?"

I should probably point out that I'm a quite strong proponent of separating the social sciences from science without qualification, normally understood to mean natural sciences. The social sciences aren't deformed, bad, or soft sciences. They are different and have fundamentally different approaches as well as having historically fundamentally different basis of legitimacy. Though the last bit is challenged by positivism.

But yes, it does differ. The SSK studies the creation of the scientific facts of biology much as the field of biology studies living beings.

Is there a name for "scientific facts" that are based on evidence? Like the sun's position relative to the Earth's?

Facts supported by evidence? I mean most facts are supported by some kind of evidence. The difference between science and natural superstition is that science has a methodology that is far better at generating facts that are accurate.

I'm having an incredibly difficult time parsing through the discourse because the terminology and overall nuance of "this science" versus "this science" are confusing

Yes, this stuff is incredibly difficult because epistemology in general is incredibly difficult. That's why I really think the history and philosophy of science should be mandatory, at least at the undergrad level.

Also, are all types of sciences socially constructed in the same level? Or are other types of sciences truer than others?

Kinda, or perhaps effectively, is the best answer to the first question. The second question is the problem though. Being socially constructed doesn't make something untrue. Science is really really good at being accurate, but it's still socially constructed. The later doesn't really mean anything for the former so much as point out that thinking and conceptions are themselves social.

Lol, well ok, we agree I think. I can't imagine getting away with that in any serious academic context.

It's fairly common in history, and I've heard at least one anthropologist use it. Putting on my anthropologist's hat I'd imagine most disciplines have some sort of word for relying on ideas, like trivial or common sense, that are yet to be sufficiently dealt with. I don't think that's a problem though! It's a call for further research.

 

[chekhonte]

Verisimilitude is a bigger problem.

 

[Cartman86]

It's depressing that people who should know better are so easily baited into saying dumb shit like this.

They have been arguing with moron right wingers for so long their brains have been melted.

 

[The One Who Knocks]

Our constructs of “one” and addition and maths as a thing are social constructs

Another species may not count individual objects (if they even count how we do) they may look at compared proportions of objects*, which could work if they view everything as collections of molecules rather than individual objects like we do

We both agree that 1+1=2 because we agree on what “one” is, what one of “something” is, what “something” is, the fact that the word “something” means “some vague thing,” the fact that we both have agreed that all these symbols I’m typing equate to the noises our throats make and that that conveys information that makes sense to you, and every other step of everything that leads to that equation, including math as a concept

We could run into an entirely new race that has zero concept of “zero” or negative numbers, for example. That’s not actually that nuts, because not all of human civilization had those concepts and they got along just fine

The underlined is true certainly, but the bolded is not really. In modern mathematics, "1" is not defined vaguely as 'we have one of something'**. The typical construction of the natural numbers is from Von Neumann, and relies upon the null set axiom, asserting the existence of a set (the null set), and then zero is defined to be the empty set, and the successor of zero is defined to be 1 (it's the set "{ {} }"), the successor of 1 is defined to be "2", etc. Addition is defined (roughly) by the process of continuously taking the successor set of something.

The use of a completely different framework will not invalidate that with this framework and these definitions this statement can only*** be true. The framework we use is constructed because of certain things we may want in this framework (for example, in constructing a foundational framework one thing that you often want is the validity of what has been proven in mathematics to date, and the ability to show this follows from an axiomatic system that doesn't use 'too much') and is 'social' (in that you don't need to construct the framework in such a manner, and indeed, there are many alternative frameworks that rely upon different logical rules), but whatever framework you decide upon, the consequences of that framework are set in stone.

*&** Of course, this is not always the framework that has been used; history of mathematics is an incredibly interesting area and is an absolutely mammoth area, but prior to the past three hundred years, mathematics did not have such strong foundational underpinnings and indeed vague definitions and concepts were used (that didn't 'properly' define objects or the rules of the game). Certain questions brought concerns about the logical basis for the fundamentals of mathematics into question, which led to the development and logical justification for what we do today. Interestingly, the system used by the Ancient Greeks actually was based around the idea of proportions, and Book 5 of Euclid's Elements concerns the theory of proportions. Something that should be emphasised is that they did not think of 'numbers' or 'magnitudes' as we do today.

***there is a slight cheat in this statement concerning the validity of arithmetic, but I don't want to get into that.

 

[cyclonekruse]

I'd say the devil's in the details here. What does the teacher mean by "social construct" exactly? If the teacher is saying that science is based on observation (which scientists would agree with) and that observation is, at least in part, based on the social construct of language (a little more contentious, but definitely not a hare-brained position), then I can see where science is a "social construct" as well. In this way it's a bit akin to the debate between mathematical realism and anti-realism.

However, if by "social construct" the professor means that science is arbitrary and therefore no better than any other arbitrary way of getting at the truth, then I'd have a problem with it. I don't think science is like language in that language clearly is "just" a social construct and no one language is really "better" than any other language.

So for me, I'll save my outrage until the ambiguity around "social construct" is cleared up.

 

[mokeyjoe]

It's fairly common in history, and I've heard at least one anthropologist use it. Putting on my anthropologists hat I'd imagine most disciplines have some sort of word for relying on ideas, like trivial or common sense, that are yet to be sufficiently dealt with. I don't think that's a problem though! It's a call for further research.

In my experience the anthropological approach to that is to wrap whatever you're saying up in impenetrable word-salad

 

[Cocaloch]

They have been arguing with moron right wingers for so long their brains have been melted.

No, there's actually a fundamental cultural problem with how the sciences see other fields and think about their own. This is perhaps most obvious when talking about sexism in science.

Statements like that aren't unthinking accidents.

 

[mlclmtckr]

No, there's actually a fundamental cultural problem with how the sciences see other fields and think about their own. This is perhaps most obvious when talking about sexism in science.

Statements like that aren't unthinking accidents.

'Facts don't care about your feelings'

 

[gfxtwin]

NDGT posts a dumb hot take on Twitter, news at 11.

"And in other news, the prestigious online community board of MENSA members known as Neogaf have debunked yet ANOTHER charlatan pseudo-intellectual. Looks like Neil Degrasse Tyson really IS just an unintelligent black science man after all. Back to you jim.

Jim: Hahah, yeah, what a downer. Love that meme though!"

 

[travisbickle]

A person’s response to that sentence is a social construct.

ie: STEM students get pissy because it sounds like they are being criticized.

 

[The Wart]

Lol, well ok, we agree I think. I can't imagine getting away with that in any serious academic context.

You wouldn't write it in a publication. But you would absolutely use it in a discussion about your own or others' research. Scientific frameworks are always going to have blank spots and inconsistencies and areas where it just doesn't seem to work; you can either resolve them within the framework or wait for a better framework to come along.

A person's response to that sentence is a social construct.

ie: STEM students get pissy because it sounds like they are being criticized.

Hey now, we're not all STEM chauvinists here. Just mostly.

 

[Mael]

In my experience the anthropological approach to that is to wrap whatever you're saying up in impenetrable word-salad

That could be the definition of nearly every PhD ever.
If you think you understand what the PhD is about at a glance you're either pretty deep in the field or don't realize that you do not understand the topic in question.

Spoiler

jk, not jk

 

[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

Scientific facts are social constructs in that they rely upon tools and signifiers that are collectively developed and agreed upon over time, but they describe phenomenon that objectively exist. This is a distinction people tend to buck against.

 

[mlclmtckr]

A person’s response to hat sentence is a social construct.

ie: STEM students get pissy because it sounds like they are being criticized.

but this same subset of people hate postmodernism, they hate abstract art, they hate gender being different from sex, they hate syncretism, they hate multiculturalism.

they are like very intensely threatened by any kind of subjectivity or acknowledgement of bias. it's really weird.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Ask the teacher to demonstrate where the "scientific fact" is related to the "social" part of "social construct". He can't, so it's the equivalent of a click bait title.

Scientific facts are social constructs in that they rely upon tools and signifiers that are collectively developed and agreed upon over time, but they describe phenomenon that objectively exist. This is a distinction people tend to buck against.

None of what you said is implicitly related to "society".

 

[Lizzy]

Geocentrism, humors, phrenology, etc., at one point were believed to be scientific fact; these truths were molded by measurements and observation and the current understanding and perspective of the world and its workings. Perception and our tools to measure and define our observations have defined what is considered fact for all of human history. Consensus based on continually refined theories and repeatable results decides what is fact. It is through accepted truths and norms that consensus is reached about theories and results, and what is accepted is molded by the social underpinnings of the time.

So global warming is a social construct? And if we just redefine global warming, then the planet will stop warming? If scientific facts are social constructs, why don’t socities have TVs that work a different way?

I understand the point you’re trying to make here, but there’s a difference between acknowledging limits of our understanding as well as human biases and saying we created everything.

 

[Aselith]

Science is a social construct based on hard, testable facts. In order to build on previous work at some point you need to trust in the science of other people and the peer reviewing that goes into testing it and work beyond it.

That's all a social construct designed to weed out bad science and allow later researchers to build on the work.

So it is but it's also as verified as humanity can possible make it.

In short, if this dude woke up from his 50 minute nap to snap a picture of one slide without listening to anything after or before it, he's probably gonna fail that class.

 

[Two Words]

It is a scientific fact that the Earth orbits the Sun. That fact would still be true if humans didn’t exist.

 

[Mael]

but this same subset of people hate postmodernism, they hate abstract art, they hate gender being different from sex, they hate syncretism, they hate multiculturalism.

they are like very intensely threatened by any kind of subjectivity or acknowledgement of bias. it's really weird.

If they hate gender being possibly different from sex they're making a value judgement on a fact, that's like being upset that FFFFFF can represent the color black.
Not a very scientific thought for anyone who would claims to be all about science.

It is a scientific fact that the Earth orbits the Sun. That fact would still be true if humans didn't exist.

If the referential used is the Earth, it's actually the Sun that orbits the Earth(as in the fixed point is the Earth).

 

[Lizzy]

It is a scientific fact that the Earth orbits the Sun. That fact would still be true if humans didn’t exist.

“Well, how do you define orbiting? Maybe the Earth isn’t orbiting the Sun because something else is going on that we can’t observe.”

I mean, maybe? It’s an interesting thought experiment and we should be open to revising our observations, but that doesn’t mean we’re wrong or that these things don’t exist or wouldn’t exist without us being here.

 

[More_Badass]

So global warming is a social construct? And if we just redefine global warming, then the planet will stop warming?

Come on, making a counterpoint like that isn’t good discussion. It doesnt even make sense in regards to what we’re discussing.

Given the nature of the class and the context-less nature of the statement, we’re going to have to assume that the notion that I and others stated is likely what it meant. Which isnt that the literal data is a social construct or doesnt exist, but how such data is defined and presented and deemed as fact or not is driven by social constructs.

 

[Dyle]

It is a scientific fact that the Earth orbits the Sun. That fact would still be true if humans didn't exist.

Well it is correct that that is what can be objectively observed in reality, the "fact" that the Earth orbits the Sun is a social construct. Facts are the way we understand the world, but they are just symbols, demonstrating what occurs in reality rather than being the rules of reality themselves. Since facts are written in words, themselves social constructs made to make sense of reality, then it follows that facts, being simply collections of words that more or less accurately describe the phenomena of reality, must be social constructs and not universal truths

No. Just another step towards a post-truth world.

But how can you know what is true if you don't question the way you know truth and reconcile the limitations of our understandings of the world with observations of reality? Not thinking, questioning what science is and simply taking it as objective truth, rather than our best, constantly changing effort at understanding objective truth, is a kind of blind worship, not genuine investigation

 

[Mammoth Jones]

No. Just another step towards a post-truth world.

 

[cryptosporidium]

The facts of science or the real world exist with or without our knowledge of said facts.

Induced knowledge is never a fact but merely a probable conclusion.

Consensus based decisions based from observation and experiment are not facts

At least this is what I'm led to believe

 

[Zeyphersan]

Well it is correct that that is what can be objectively observed in reality, the "fact" that the Earth orbits the Sun is a social construct. Facts are the way we understand the world, but they are just symbols, demonstrating what occurs in reality rather than being the rules of reality themselves. Since facts are written in words, themselves social constructs made to make sense of reality, then it follows that facts, being simply collections of words that more or less accurately describe the phenomena of reality, must be social constructs and not universal truths

I like this explanation

 

[wandering]

Oh man, I'm loving how people are misunderstanding and losing their minds over this.

 

[pirateluigi]

Oh man, I'm loving how people are misunderstanding and losing their minds over this.

It's because people seem to assume "social construct" means "fake".

 

[mokeyjoe]

It is a scientific fact that the Earth orbits the Sun. That fact would still be true if humans didn’t exist.

Obviously it would be true.

But there's the thing - it wouldn't be a 'scientific' fact as science wouldn't exist.

There is objective reality and there is the human activity of science. Science is a social enterprise intended to empirically interrogate and explain this objective reality.

It is not objective reality itself. And in the process of doing 'it', it can be subject to all sorts of subjectivities and biases.

These will (because any good scientist knows that science, as human work, is fallible - it isn't theology) be improved upon over time, but there are all sorts of obstacles, dead ends and inertia involved with this process.

 

[BrassDragon]

It's because people seem to assume "social construct" means "fake".

This.There is nothing contentious about that slide at all, no value judgement or attack on rationality. Whoever posted that pic on social media should stop dicking around with their phone in class and listen to what their tutor is trying to teach them.

 

[More_Badass]

These will (because any good scientist knows that science, as human work, is fallible - it isn't theology) be improved upon over time, but there are all sorts of obstacles, dead ends and inertia involved with this process.

I read Sagan's Demon Haunted World recently and that was one of his many major points in regards to how we should think about science

 

[Haly]

Aww yeah is this going to be the official thread of epistemology and theory of mind!?

 

[Lizzy]

Come on, making a counterpoint like that isn't good discussion. It doesnt even make sense in regards to what we're discussing.

How is that not good discussion? We have people in this thread refuting "1 + 1 = 2" by saying essentially saying, "Well, how do we really know those two '1s' are equal?" We also have Stump in here saying that humans cause natural disasters because they live in places where natural disasters occur.

So, no, I don't agree that the point I made wasn't good discussion. Yes, science is affected by human biases on an individual and societal level, but that doesn't mean there aren't facts, nor that they are socially constructed. It just means humans can be dumb.

 

[Mael]

How is that not good discussion? We have people in this thread refuting "1 + 1 = 2" by saying essentially saying, "Well, how do we really know those two '1s' are equal?" We also have Stump in here saying that humans cause natural disasters because they live in places where natural disasters occur.

So, no, I don't agree that the point I made wasn't good discussion. Yes, science is affected by human biases on an individual and societal level, but that doesn't mean there aren't facts, nor that they are socially constructed. It just means humans can be dumb.

If the only thing you're saying is "1+1=2", considering you've defined nothing and using an unspoken assumption about all that is defined, it isn't a stretch to point out that this equivalence may be wrong.
Why? Because in some contexts it pretty much is.

 

[wandering]

Aww yeah is this going to be the official thread of epistemology and theory of mind!?

Bruh GAF can barely handle basic ethics

 

[Chmpocalypse]

I'm sure it has been said, but no, facts are not constructs. The laws of the universe remain whether or not they are measured by man.

Stories change and will likely not be repeated exactly as-is if destroyed, but 1+1 is 2 and will be found to be so by another intelligence if all our knowledge of maths were wiped out.

Exactly.

 

[Stumpokapow]

How is that not good discussion? We have people in this thread refuting "1 + 1 = 2" by saying essentially saying, "Well, how do we really know those two '1s' are equal?" We also have Stump in here saying that humans cause natural disasters because they live in places where natural disasters occur.

Well with someone engaging my posts in good faith like this, I'm definitely likely to continue discussing.

 

[tonysidaway]

There's a bit of muddy discussion here.

Science tries to make models about objective reality.

Science is a large endeavour. Part of that endeavour, theoretical physics, has modern physicists tackling the question of whether we can access objective reality at all. The Boltzmann Brain problem isn't quite dead yet.

Science is definitely influenced by social and human issues. When people use "social construct" it implies arbitrary.

No, it really doesn't. It literally means no more than that scientific facts are the result of human activities such as measurement, reasoning and consensus. Scientific facts aren't invalidated just because they're social constructs, any more than a description of human reproduction is invalidated by the fact that gender is a social concept.

 

[pigeon]

Your mom is a scientific fact.

Your dad, by contrast, is a social construct.

 

[Cocaloch]

As ever with stuff like this I think it's a hilarious case in point of the root issue when people just dismiss essentially the entirety of the expert community dedicated to studying it.

Most of this thread is just anti-intellectualism dressed up by people who have defined intellectual to mean only scientists.

 

[wandering]

Science is definitely influenced by social and human issues. When people use "social construct" it implies arbitrary.

No, it's people inferring "arbitrary" of their own accord when that was never implied. Governments, nations, economies, trade, geopolitics, surveillance, laws, communities, languages, communication, traditions, cultures...... all of these are social constructs. It doesn't mean they're arbitrary.

 

[lastplayed]

The sun don't care.

It's been fusing atoms long before we came long, and will continue long after we're gone.

In a billion years the new wave of intelligent life will come to the same conclusion.

 

[Cocaloch]

No, it's people inferring "arbitrary" of their own accord when that was never implied. Governments, nations, economies, trade, geopolitics, surveillance, laws, communities, languages, communication, traditions, cultures...... all of these are social constructs. It doesn't mean they're arbitrary.

They aren't inferring that of their own accord. There are clear social reasons that explain why people want to dismiss the social nature of science.

 

[Paracelsus]

Your mom is a scientific fact.

Your dad, by contrast, is a social construct.

It's definitely both. If anything, it's only a social construct when it's not your biological father.

 

[Amibguous Cad]

Aww yeah is this going to be the official thread of epistemology and theory of mind!?

We should totally make an OT

 

[AllIsOneIsNone]

What if I told you that the phrase "scientific facts are a social construct" is a social construct? A fact within a fact leaves the whole world mind fucked.