Half the Facts You Know Are Probably Wrong

[Chris]

I've often argued science doesn't prove things. This is based on the Popper's solution to Hume's Problem of Induction, that is, falsification But that can be esoteric. And the usual response to my claim has been to cite scientific facts. Things is not only are facts not proofs, they are not proven, as the following demonstrates:


...In the modern world facts change all of the time, according to Samuel Arbesman, author of the new book The Half-Life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date (Current).

...In 1947, the mathematician Derek J. de Solla Price was asked to store a complete set of The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society temporarily in his house. Price stacked them in chronological order by decade, and he noticed that the number of volumes doubled about every 15 years, i.e., scientific knowledge was apparently growing at an exponential rate....

Since knowledge is still growing at an impressively rapid pace, it should not be surprising that many facts people learned in school have been overturned and are now out of date. But at what rate do former facts disappear? Arbesman applies to the dissolution of facts the concept of half-life—the time required for half the atoms of a given amount of a radioactive substance to disintegrate. For example, the half-life of the radioactive isotope strontium-90 is just over 29 years. Applying the concept of half-life to facts, Arbesman cites research that looked into the decay in the truth of clinical knowledge about cirrhosis and hepatitis. “The half-life of truth was 45 years,” he found.

...In 2005, the physician and statistician John Ioannides published “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False” in the journal PLoS Medicine. Ioannides cataloged the flaws of much biomedical research, pointing out that reported studies are less likely to be true when they are small, the postulated effect is likely to be weak, research designs and endpoints are flexible, financial and nonfinancial conflicts of interest are common, and competition in the field is fierce. Ioannides concluded that “for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.” Still, knowledge marches on, spawning new facts and changing old ones.

Another reason that personal knowledge decays is that people cling to selected “facts” as a way to justify their beliefs about how the world works. Arbesman notes, “We persist in only adding facts to our personal store of knowledge that jibe with what we already know, rather than assimilate new facts irrespective of how they fit into our worldview.” All too true; confirmation bias is everywhere.

...

@ Half the Facts You Know Are Probably Wrong (http://reason.com/archives/2012/12/24/half-the-facts-you-know-are-probably-wro)

[oceanloverOH]

I keep reading this....and leaving....and coming back and reading it again. It still makes no real sense to me. Popper's solution to Hume's Problem of Induction? Must be the day after Christmas or something.

[Chris]

Hmmm, OK. Yes, the Popper and Hume reference were esoteric.

The main point is that our knowledge, all the facts we think we know, keeps changing, keeps growing, and new facts replace old ones, that many things presented as facts are mistaken, and many we go on believing because they confirm our biases.

At one time science was empirical, based on facts from which hypotheses, theories, laws were induced. For example, you go out in the world and observe swans. Everywhere you look, swans are white. You therefore conclude as a fact, all swans are white.

Hume came along and said there's a problems with that. You can't observe all swans. You can't say the next swan you see will be white. He used as example black swans which had been discovered in Australia. This is known as the Problem of Induction. You can never completely prove by induction of empirical observation or experiment any truth.

This undermined the very notion of science.

Popper came along and said that science is not about proving things true, since that cannot be done, but about falsifying things. The object of science is still to formulate hypotheses, etc, but instead of trying to prove them right, try to prove them wrong.

When Einstein came out with the theory of relativity, for example, it was science not because it could be proven right but because he explained how to falsify it.

The fact that facts are changing lends evidence to this.

Hume also explained that while this is so in science in everyday life we adopt the convention that if enough facts support an opinion or idea, then we take it as true, true enough, at least, to believe.

Hope that explains.

[oceanloverOH]

That does help some, thanks. And you're right, "science" can be very inexact....most scientific opinions ARE drawn from observation and hypothesis. It's a thought-provoking concept; that we should be working to prove hypotheses wrong, instead of trying to prove them right (which can be nearly impossible). Interesting post.

[Chris]

Thanks!

[Deadwood]

Hmmm, OK. Yes, the Popper and Hume reference were esoteric.

The main point is that our knowledge, all the facts we think we know, keeps changing, keeps growing, and new facts replace old ones, that many things presented as facts are mistaken, and many we go on believing because they confirm our biases.

At one time science was empirical, based on facts from which hypotheses, theories, laws were induced. For example, you go out in the world and observe swans. Everywhere you look, swans are white. You therefore conclude as a fact, all swans are white.

Hume came along and said there's a problems with that. You can't observe all swans. You can't say the next swan you see will be white. He used as example black swans which had been discovered in Australia. This is known as the Problem of Induction. You can never completely prove by induction of empirical observation or experiment any truth.

This undermined the very notion of science.

Popper came along and said that science is not about proving things true, since that cannot be done, but about falsifying things. The object of science is still to formulate hypotheses, etc, but instead of trying to prove them right, try to prove them wrong.

When Einstein came out with the theory of relativity, for example, it was science not because it could be proven right but because he explained how to falsify it.

The fact that facts are changing lends evidence to this.

Hume also explained that while this is so in science in everyday life we adopt the convention that if enough facts support an opinion or idea, then we take it as true, true enough, at least, to believe.

Hope that explains.

Well, [see bold], that may be something of an over statement.

Having said that all science operates on fundamental laws, such as gravity. It can be measured, studied, used. It is fact.

Laws concerning the inter-activity of gas, gas under pressure are facts. Laws concerning cell division, identification and classification are facts.

Now, where there is issue is where we do not have an accepted, tested and proven set of facts to guide us in much of modern science and where it fails us, has always actually, is when we marry emotion with what we know. And there is where we find the author's statement "“We persist in only adding facts to our personal store of knowledge that jibe with what we already know, rather than assimilate new facts irrespective of how they fit into our worldview.” To be as close to fact as yuo can get in that field called human behavior.

It was Newton, for example, who gave us laws concerning objects in motion, a clear definition of gravity itself in fact and yet died a pauper having exhausted his wealth in the belief gold could be made from lead.

Where we fail science though, is in believing that the headline today is, first close to accurate, and will still be accurate sometime down the road. When we go berserk over a a claim there will be no ozone in five years and find no one even talking about ozone at all 15 years later, well that's our fault. But the guy who cried wolf still has his PHD.

Having been a practical biologist for over a decade I look at sciance this way: if it is so new and great, it will prove out in the long run. If you need to advertise, yell or threaten, then it's probably bullshit and anyone who CLAIMS to know answers....is usually bullshitting.

[Carygrant]

Read some Linguistic analysis , Chris , and put yourself out of misery .

Keeping it simple for the Authoritarian personalities here , it all revolves about what you define as facts in the first place .
And being rigorous , your ability to classify different types of " fact"( with their agreed definitions ), and essentially distinguishing between mathematically and logically defined ' facts" ( Plato's Ideals ? ) as compared to other notions posited as " facts" which are obtained from other methods ---- observation and experience being the two most obvious categories .

[Chris]

Well, [see bold], that may be something of an over statement.

Having said that all science operates on fundamental laws, such as gravity. It can be measured, studied, used. It is fact.

Laws concerning the inter-activity of gas, gas under pressure are facts. Laws concerning cell division, identification and classification are facts.

Now, where there is issue is where we do not have an accepted, tested and proven set of facts to guide us in much of modern science and where it fails us, has always actually, is when we marry emotion with what we know. And there is where we find the author's statement "“We persist in only adding facts to our personal store of knowledge that jibe with what we already know, rather than assimilate new facts irrespective of how they fit into our worldview.” To be as close to fact as yuo can get in that field called human behavior.

It was Newton, for example, who gave us laws concerning objects in motion, a clear definition of gravity itself in fact and yet died a pauper having exhausted his wealth in the belief gold could be made from lead.

Where we fail science though, is in believing that the headline today is, first close to accurate, and will still be accurate sometime down the road. When we go berserk over a a claim there will be no ozone in five years and find no one even talking about ozone at all 15 years later, well that's our fault. But the guy who cried wolf still has his PHD.

Having been a practical biologist for over a decade I look at sciance this way: if it is so new and great, it will prove out in the long run. If you need to advertise, yell or threaten, then it's probably bullshit and anyone who CLAIMS to know answers....is usually bullshitting.

Science used to assume proof by induction. Hume demonstrated that cannot prove things, Popper found a solution in falsification. That was a revolution in the very nature of science.

Laws are not facts, but relationships between facts. Example, e=mc2. Einstein's theory of relativity revised Newtonian gravity just as Einstein predicted his theory would eventually be revised. Kuhn demonstrated even the laws and theories of science change. Another revolution will probably be required to arrive at a unified theory, partly the theme of Hawking & Mlodinow's The Grand Design.

[Chris]

Now, where there is issue is where we do not have an accepted, tested and proven set of facts to guide us in much of modern science and where it fails us, has always actually, is when we marry emotion with what we know. And there is where we find the author's statement "“We persist in only adding facts to our personal store of knowledge that jibe with what we already know, rather than assimilate new facts irrespective of how they fit into our worldview.” To be as close to fact as yuo can get in that field called human behavior.

It is emotion? There is an argument as to whether science is driven by facts or driven by theory. The former best represented by logical positivists, which Popper and others have demonstrated wrong. Put simply, facts don't speak for themselves. Part of stating how a theory is falsifiable is selecting the facts to experiment with and/or observe. In economics--yes, far from physical sciences--there is a long dispute between socialist historicists and the Austrian school based on apodeictic knowledge.