Thread by @udarnik

Where am I in the Steak-umm / Tyson ... beef?

https://twitter.com/steak_umm/status/1382022537119416327

Nuanced.

Where is Tyson coming from? A knee-jerk response to the post-modernist nonsense of the '90s, where tenured idiots maintained that the fact that scientists were biased meant that the scientific process was, regardless of time span, not deserving of privilege as a "way of knowing".

That was clearly horse shit.

And modern science is interlocking. There is a good deal of science that's so settled, we're not going to waste time rehashing it with every idiot just doing their own research.

So if you want to argue the Earth is flat, you've got to explain orbital dynamics (the moons' path would be much different around a disk), you've got to explain why gravity is pretty much the same everywhere on Earth (also not true on a disc) ...

as *well* as the obvious question of why ships disappear over the horizon instead of just getting smaller and smaller.

The Earth is round whether or not you believe it, and Science the institution has a lot to say about that using Science the methodology.

But where is Steak-umm coming from?

For a Science communicator (and let's be real, Tyson hasn't done any real science since the 90s, his job is STEM PR) Tyson has an infuriating habit of conflating fundamental concepts such as Science the institution and Science the method.

I fucking *hate* the phrase *Science says*.

Dude. Science doesn't say *shit*. It's inanimate.

ScientISTS say things, and some of those things are more disputable than others.

Interlocking, well established scientific theories that make correct predictions about the world around us and that have mountains of previously correct empirical predictions are not worth arguing about.

And the Sea Lions of society make it really tempting to use a pseudo argumentum ab auctoritate to just stop the bullshit - but anthropomorphizing "Science" IS committing that particular logical fallacy, and we shouldn't do it.

I'm fucking tired of arguing with Young Earth Creationists, too.

I deal with that by having stock questions that stop them in their tracks, not by retreating behind the walls of authority.

For example, the "just a theory" bullshit about evolution. ALL of Science the edifice is theory. The question is, how much evidence do we have for the theories ? (This is why I hate the Humanities use of the word to mean "intellectual framework". Theories make testable claims.)

We have more and better evidence for the Theory of Evolution than we do for the Theory of Gravity, but I don't see the YEC doofi complaining about teaching Newton's Laws.

Speaking of Newton's Laws, they're wrong, you know.

At least at Relatavistic speeds.

Those kinds of arguments are mostly foreign to YECs, and tend to reverse Bullshit Asymmetry Principle them into sidebars they can't win when you use them correctly.

That's a whole lot more in tune with the spirit of smug statements about Science that don't differentiate between the institution, the body of knowledge and the method, three overlapping, but distinct entities.

There have been too many scientists getting too many things wrong in this recent COVID experience to get as smug as Tyson about the institution. I leave you with an example of the *proper* scientific attitude, once again:

https://twitter.com/udarnik/status/1380865070285123599