Why science is fucked
We have many traditional systems to determine truth.

When these systems are functional, how do they work?

They use negative feedback, same as any other attempt to reach a specific location or accomplish a specific purpose.

The use of negative feedback to approach a truth requires systematic and conscious use of an aspect of feedback that we don't notice in well-practiced moves like reaching for a doorknob. In a well-practiced move your nervous system has already done the work of programming the correct muscle tension at each millisecond. Feedback is available, but it's held in reserve for surprises like the wind sucking the door closed.

When you're in unfamiliar territory... EXPERIMENTAL territory... you need to use feedback systematically and consciously.

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Systematic negative feedback is used in all parts of life, but it acquired a special name in tests of human perception. The METHOD OF ADJUSTMENT measures COMPLEX properties of human perception quickly and reliably. When an optometrist does the Better This Way? Or Better That Way? routine, he's using MOA. When an audiologist runs a conventional threshold test, he's using MOA.

In these processes of seeking a genuinely unknown final destination, you can't rely on preprogrammed movements. You don't know where the optimum or final value is until you've gone THROUGH it. You can't see it coming in advance.

Move in one direction until you GO BEYOND the center. Then move the other way until you GO BEYOND the center again. Each subsequent move starts from a point closer to the center (on opposite sides). A few iterations will get you close enough that you can't distinguish the error. It's fast and reliable.

A more familiar example is cooking. If you haven't fried an egg before, you don't know how many minutes are necessary for your particular stove and pan and tastes. You have to Goldilocks the minutes. You probably aren't doing it systematically, but nevertheless you are recording the damped oscillation as it goes PAST the optimum in BOTH directions. Ten minutes is too brown and crispy. Two minutes is gooey and icky. Try eight minutes. Still too crispy. Try five. A little gooey. Six? Just right.



Truth-finders like juries and price negotiations and diplomacy use MOA. Each side starts by GOING BEYOND its desired destination. Each subsequent zero-crossing then starts from a point closer to the destination, until the last move is too small to be worth further argument. Both sides are reasonably satisfied because they were able to pull their internal baselines centerward during the haggling. The last departure from each side's readjusted baseline is relatively comfortable, not too much of a stretch.

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Well then. This is a scientific method of reaching truth. Of course Scientific Method uses this scientific method to reach truth. Right?

WRONG.

SM does NOT use the method of adjustment.

The null hypothesis is at one end of a scale. You run the variables and constants to see if Y moves when you vary X, or Y stays constant when you vary X. If Y stays constant, null hypothesis stands, theory not proven. If Y varies, you have some degree of proof, which you SUPPOSEDLY try to increase.

There is no GOING BEYOND in this system, no crossing the centerline, no way to define 'less than null'. There is no devil's advocate pushing for the OPPOSITE theory, or ideally for several alternate theories. It's just my theory versus no theory.

In healthy scientific PRACTICE we sometimes get a proper MOA taffy-pull, with two competing explanations battling for the consensus. But even in those uncommon healthy situations, the rules of the game require each side to write and analyze its results as my way or the noway. There is no destination at the end of the trip, no sale at the end of the haggling, no pressure to reach a verdict so we can go home and resume our lives.

These facing-sideways battles are NOT quick or reliable. They can go on for decades after the correct mix of explanations is blatantly obvious to external observers. Tectonic plates are the most famous example. In speech and hearing, the theory that the larynx vibrates like a speaker was still being taught as a valid option 70 years after the resonant-reed theory was obviously correct.

Labels: Blinded by Stats, Carver

  ¶ 1:00 AM