I've been thinking about this really good @zeynep piece and . . . philosophy of science. 1/
theatlantic.com/health/archive…
theatlantic.com/health/archive…
There's an argument in philosophy of science called the pessimistic induction. The argument -- which is nowhere near a majority view -- runs like this (in twitter version): Every scientific theory displaces an earlier one. . . 2/
Therefore we should expect every scientific belief we currently hold to be replaced. Again, this is the 280 character version. 3/
The standard response to this is that, well, this is how science works, and it is self-correcting. IOW, this is a feature, not a bug, as we move toward capital-T truth. 4/
I think that is right, enough for me to reject the strong version of the PI. But I think it is only trivially right. The problem is that we don't really have a useful scale to measure against. 5/
So you can think of science as moving to the top of the hill, and with each discovery we are closer to the top. Except we have no way of knowing where the top really is. What if we get to the "top" and it turns out that we've really just ascended an anthill, 6/
and the Himalayas await on the other side. Which brings me back to COVID and the article. Back in March I was inundated with assurances about how much we knew about the virus -- its genetic sequence, its type, etc. 7/
But we were flatly *wrong* about so much. Remember the panics over lack of hand sanitizer, which still lingers and forms the backbone of a lot of re-opening plans, but as it turns out isn't really that useful? 8/
Being told not to wear masks? Closing parks and beaches? Trying to stock up on ventilators, when it turns out they were often counterproductive? We can look back and re-assure ourselves with how far we've come. But the question is have we? 9/
The truth is, the belief that we have come far in our knowledge lacks a particularly strong epistemic warrant, unless you count faith -- a word I use advisedly -- in science as a strong epistemic warrant. Some do. 10/
Anyway, I don't know exactly where this goes. I do what the current science suggests. I just don't have a ton of certitude about it, and I'm not sure anyone should. /nihilism 11/11
