Latest / Why We Do What We Do / Mini: What is the Point of Science?

Transcript

Mini: What is the Point of Science? · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we do what we do. Welcome
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to Why we Do what we do Mini. I'm your
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: host Abraham.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: And I'm your host Shane.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: We are a psychology podcast. We talk about the things
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: that humans and non human animals do. And today we're
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: doing a mini So we're a short psychology podcast, trying
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: to get this done in fifteen minutes or less. And
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: you're probably going to desire that even more today because
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: we're getting into some philosophy, some arguments, some sollipsisms, not really,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: but a little bit of rhetoric here, and I don't know,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: it's a discussion. It's like we're asking a question that
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: we hope makes you think a little bit more, a
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: little bit differently about these things and piques your curiosity.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: That's what we're doing.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And we love curiosity. We love it.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: We love curiosity and asking questions, and that's what we've
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: been doing on this podcast for several years.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Indeed, And if you're joining us for the first time,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: then welcome. It seems like you are also curious, and
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I hope that you continue to seek us out and
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: explore that curiosity further. And here you're a returning person,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: then you definitely are curious and we appreciate you. Thank
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: you for coming back. And either way, if you like
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: to support us, you can leave us a rating and
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: a review like subscribe, tell a friend, join us on Patreon.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I'll talk more about those things at the end of
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: this discussion, but this is a mini which means we
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: kind of got to get into it so that we
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: can get out of there. I'll let you go about
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: your day, yes, with a little bit more, a little
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: bit more thoughts going on, something percolating up there. Just
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: gonna ask the question, So, all right, is there anything
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: that I forgot or that you'd like to add as
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: part of our preamble before we jump into our topic.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: D joure no, I think we're ready to go.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, people, buckle in, it's happening. We the collect If Royal.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: We people actually know. We it's actually just Shane and I.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: We generally take for granted that science is good. Inherently
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: it's a good and that we should be doing science.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: That's the thing we take for granted. And I do
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: mean we, as in Shane and I. I understand that
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: there are people who disagree with us, but also most
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: people do seem to have a general appreciation for science,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: like most people seem to have that in some capacity,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: in some way.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: Yes, Yet sometimes it is worth revisiting the discussion about
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: what is the point of the things we do? And
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: science is one of those things we do? Science, So
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: what is the point of science? We're going to unpack
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: what philosophers have said and propose some different ways to
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: ask that question that might illustrate the question a little bit.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Better and also therefore illustrates the potential answers a little
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: bit better.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: So first, if we're asking, if someone's asking, and someone
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: is asking, not us, but we're asking for the point
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: of this, someone's asking, what's the point of sci? I
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: think the first retort to that is, what do you mean?
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: What is the point of science?
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah? What does that mean?
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: What does that question mean?
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: There are different ways to ask the question, and those
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: different ways of asking the question inspire different answers and
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: different ways to think about what the answer might be.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: But I'm jumping ahead just a little bit.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we can start with what is the
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: point of science? And probably suggests the point of science
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: is to discover things? But this further begs the question
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: what is the point of discovering.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Things exactly like what you sort of regress, like you
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: keep going. Perhaps the answer is the point is of
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: science or of discovering things is to chase our curiosity.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: But that also then begs a new question, which is
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: what's the point of our chasing curiosity? And also is
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: satisfying our curiosity a reasonable purpose to do something? I
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: think you could easily point to situations where satisfying curiosity
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: is not a good enough reason to have done the
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: thing about what you were curious. So maybe in some
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: cases it is, some cases it isn't. Maybe that's never
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: a good answer, but you know, again, it does then
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: ask like what does it mean? What's the point of
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: chasing our curiosity? How far do we go with that?
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: So, French philosopher August Kompt distrusted that science was even
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: capable of describing the underlying reality and nature of things,
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: and instead that the point of science was to make
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: predictions about things that will happen. That is that the
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: point of science is in its utility, Yeah, what can accomplish?
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: That's essentially what he cared about is like, I don't
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: really think that you can do what you think you
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: can do, but you can be helpful. So as long
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: as you're helpful, you have a purpose. That seemed to
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: be his orientation to it.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Francis Bacon and Renee Descartes were both philosophers, and they wrote, essentially,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: if you distill down their points, that the point the
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: purpose of science, The point here is to remove bias
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: from how we tend to try and describe and understand
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: things and expose fundamental truths in some capacity. That the
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: point was to be able to describe things with mathematical precision,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: and that is, to them, the point of science is
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: the ability to develop rules that remain consistent in all circumstances.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: That's kind of what describing means here, is like, can
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: I say something about this phenomenon that will be true
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: the next time it happens, and the time after that,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: and then every variation that might exist about this phenomenon
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the way that I've described it always accurately describes what happens,
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: and in a way also maybe make some predictions about that.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: But that's essentially it is like, can I describe this
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: thing in a way that's really consistent those rules about
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: what my description they maintain and hold yes.
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: Now, another way to approach this question is to rephrase
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: the question what is the utility of science?
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: That is, to what end do we do science?
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: And, as proposed by Compte, compt to predict things that
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: will happen, both natural events in the world and the
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: behavior of other humans and non human animals. Prediction allows
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: the preparation to benefit maximally from advantagious circumstances and sometimes
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: to make further predictions.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so like maybe instead of asking what's the point
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: of science, you say, what's the utility of science? To
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: what end do we do this? Like? What are we
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: trying to get out of this? And when we're talking
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: about utility, we're not usually talking about ads. Okay, we're
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: back what we're talking about utility and we're describing like
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: potentially if you're thinking about it. One of the ways
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: that we can ask that question instead of like, what's
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: the point is what's the utility? What do we get
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: out of it? And this can also refer to not
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: just like the fact that it can allow us to
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: predict things that will happen, to make predictions about behavior,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: to make more predictions. Es actually, like at one leads
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: to another, it can also refer to tangible benefits that
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: science might produce. Medications is something we could get out
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: of it. That could be utility, medical solutions to health problems,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: effective weapons, more effective tools, more effective food production and
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: food storage and food creation, better construction techniques. There's like
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: all these other things that we can get out of
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: the scientific process that essentially reflect it's utility, the kind
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: of use that we get out of that process, And
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: maybe that's the point or a way to answer what's
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: the point of science is like what's the utility of science?
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: And another way to approach this is to rephrase the question.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: Perhaps instead of asking what is the point of science,
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: we say it slightly differently, which is why do we
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: do science? And that is under what conditions do we
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: do science?
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, if we want to say, like, rather than
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: say what's the point, we say why do we do it?
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: And when you say why, you can always replace that
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: with under what circumstances? And that again creates a slightly
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: different context to think about this. So, under what conditions
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: do we do science? Often when there's a problem to
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: be solved, when there's an arms race between warring states,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: when we're observing a phenomenon that we don't understand and
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: we can't seem to be able to explain. Those are
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: definitely conditions under which people have attempted to do science,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: for sure.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and so in these situations the point of science
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: is somewhat circumstantial. In all ways, there is some external
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: motivation and pressure to solve something, either describing produces an
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: outcome that resolves a problem, to u the most efficient
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: means of destruction or defense in some cases, and to
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: describe something satisfactorily enough that people are satisfied with the answer.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: So all of those are different kinds of outcomes in
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: those situations that specific to those circumstances that we're trying
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: to solve. Yeah.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if we go back to sort of under what
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: conditions do we do science, like, it addresses some aspect
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: of those things right now. Of course, simple curiosity has
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: led to a lot of important discoveries, and see our
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: episode on the Golden Goose Awards for the list of
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: some of what those might be. So there's also this
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: just like people just observe things around them and go
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: like huh, I wonder how that is or why that is,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: or what's going on with that thing? And they just
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: want to just understand it better, which really means again,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: like describe it in a way that feels satisfactory.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: Right, right, right, So the question is kind of silly
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: no matter how you ask it. Humans use language to
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: coordinate and cooperate, and science as an organized way to
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: use that language while avoiding psychological biases, or at least
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: removing them as much as possible.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So essentially the point here being that, like, what's
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: the point of science? I feel like that's kind of
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: a silly question. We have tried a lot of ways
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: to interact with the world and with each other over
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: the history of mankind. Many of them suck a lot.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: War failure, like, that's not a good way to do it.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Superstition failure, that's not a good way to do it.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Religion epic, colossal, massive failure. That's like the worst way
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: you could possibly do it. The best way we have
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: ever come up with to interact with the world and
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: each other is through science. Like, we've done it a
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: lot of ways. I only listed a few, but the
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: best way we've done it to science, that's been the
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: most productive. It's allowed us to avoid the most mistakes.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: It doesn't really need to have a point, because it's
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: not like a doesn't need to be a thing. The
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: best way that we have found to coordinate and cooperate
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: with each other while ruling out cognitive psychological biases is
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: through scientific processes. And I understand, like people are going
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: to point to all the terrible things that scientists have done,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: and that's true. There have been a lot of problems
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: and the name of science that have happened. But it
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: is the self correcting machine that like it eventually got
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: to a better and better place over time, because that's
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: kind of the nature of the inquiry of science. Like it,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: it begets things like ethics, it begets things like morals,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: it begets things like progress. That's kind of what it does.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: And it has been used to horrible ends and it
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: will be used to horrible ends again in the future,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: but it will get better and improve. The other ways
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: that we've done this, they only get worse, Like they
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: pretty much never solve anything, and they create a lot
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: more problems and they make things worse. Right, So like,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: until there's something better than science, that's just the best
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: wave we've got to like go, you know, like to
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: do this thing.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: I agree, I agree it's it's more unifying than anything
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: else that we've done so far exactly.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: So that's that's the point, I guess. If you have to,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: if you have to put a label on it, if
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: you have to put a fine point on the thing,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: that's what's going on there. So Yeah, if you'd like
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: to tell us your thoughts on the point of science
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: or anything that we said in here, you can email
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: us directly and we'd love to hear from you. You can
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: reach us at our email at info atwwdwdpodcast dot com,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: and on the social media platforms and we look forward
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: to hearing from you there. As I mentioned at the beginning,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: if you like to support us, you can leave us
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: a rating and a review. Take a friend's phone, subscribe
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: for them, maybe leave a rating and review from their profile,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: give us five stars, ten stars, whatever the maximum number
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: of stars.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: You can do.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: And then if you have some constructive criticism, we're happy
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: to hear that. Just email us and talk to us
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: about it. You don't need to like make it hard
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: for us to be a podcast by leaving us poor reviews. Yeah,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: it helps us to leave us reviews, And if you'd
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: really like to support us, you can join us over
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: on Patreon, and if you do that then you'll get
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: bonus content, add free episodes, early episodes, and I'll read
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: your name and our list of supporters at the end
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: of our full length discussions because we've got time for
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: it over there. We don't really have time for that.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: At the end of a mini, thank you to my
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: team of people. Thank you for recording with me today, Shane,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: thank you for having me, Thank you all for listening.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Is there anything that I forgot you'd like to add
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: before we wrap up? No, perfect, Go forth and do science.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: This is Abraham, This is Shane. Why we do what
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: we do? Mini is out.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Bye. You've been listening to Why We Do what We Do.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: going to WWDWWD podcast dot com. Thanks for listening and
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: we hope you have an awesome day.