Philosophical Notes (1)

1) ‘Light-waves and the different mixtures of lengths of wave emitted’ are the causes of colour; though not themselves colour. Are ‘differences in mean kinetic energy’ therefore separable from heat? Not according to Kripke: heat = mean kinetic energy. Can we say the same about, say, the colour blue? That is: blue = … lengths of wave…

Blue cannot exist without sensory receptors, according to Kripke. This does make sense. After all, the sun may boil, heat up, water without sensory receptors being there to check, as it were, this fact. If there were no sensory receptors, there would be no blue (as Berkeley made clear nearly three hundred years ago).

2) Why should Paul and Twin Paul ‘mean different things by the same word’? Water may be XYZ on Twin Earth and H2 O on earth; though they are phenomenally and epistemically identical. Why should their scientific constituents determine mental content and not their phenomenal features? Do H2 O molecules, or XYZ molecules, enter the brain and therefore determine mental content?

3) So many new theories of mind simply ignore the mind-body problem. I'm suspicious, but perhaps there is nothing more to say about it. Kim or Davidson doesn’t seem to have solved the problem.

4) Some theories of mind are so neat and tidy. It’s as if the mind-brain was designed by a logician or a computer designer. It’s all there in the books on logic. Similarly with Fodor’s LOT – it is language-centric. Churchland’s theories are messier because it is science-based. That is, they take into account evolution, etc. A philosopher of mind, e.g. Fodor, sees language-like computations and structures in the mind. A computer nerd sees computational events and structures. A logician… What comes first? The chicken or the egg? (Cheap ‘psychologism’?)

5) Does mathematics have meanings or references, or is it just the manipulation of symbols? Symbols of what? Abstract numbers in a platonic heaven?

6) What a strange juxtaposition – Ryle and Heidegger. However, they certainly share anti-Cartesianism. How deep does the resemblance go?

Ryle’s aggressive style is very refreshing when it's compared to the boring bullshit of J.L. Austin and other linguistic philosophers (although Ryle took some things from them). Ryle is largely ignored today. It is, of course, a shame. Such a lively writer, to say the least. It was surprising, therefore, that there is a chapter on behaviourism. Surely the question of whether or not Ryle was a behaviourist is answered there. (Or at least if he thought he was one, even if others thought differently.) This is not to say that we should accept his denials or affirmations; though at least the water will be made a little less muddy in this area. More precisely, was behaviourism an instrumentalist or pragmatic theory on his part, or did it squarely and ontologically deny mentality? Indeed could it have rejected mentality (bearing in mind the possibility that behaviourists must have had mental states themselves!)?

What I note, idiosyncratically, is how much Ryle knows about non-philosophical subjects. This is consciously missing in most Anglo-American analytic philosophy. He was, perhaps, a Renaissance man, unlike so many other analytic philosophers. (Excepting, perhaps, Roger Scruton! However, he’s sometimes an arse!)

7) Despite the popular-science approach of Daniel Dennett’s Brainstorms, there is still the use of logical notation:

(x) (Mx≡Px)

This is a very simple notation, involving symbols for the biconditional, predicates and a variable:

For every x such that each x is mental if and only if x is physical.

‘x’ could stand for Tony Blair. Then it would be:

Tony Blair is a politician if and only if he is corrupt.

8) Of course Kant wasn’t a Pietist is the obvious sense. He was a philosopher who built a huge edifice of moral philosophy. Calvin didn’t argue his case. He stated it. Kant argued his case with powerful philosophy. Powerful enough to convince a Puritan or even an atheist. But he was still a pietist with a small ‘p’!

10) The more you read of a particular philosopher, the more you understand and the more connections you can make. The broad concerns become apparent and it is realised that, in a sense, all his works are tackling the same issues or have the same concerns and presuppositions.

Take Quine. In nearly all of his papers and books he refers to ‘Neurath’s boat’. This is a story about philosophy’s dependence and necessary relation to science. Hume’s ‘mitigated’ scepticism resounds through all his work. And Kant’s a priori is as applicable to metaphysics as to moral philosophy.

I shouldn’t rely on interpreters or explicators of philosophers’ work. I should trust my own understanding of them. Why not? I will, of course, study interpretations and commentaries. I just won’t rely on them. This, surely, is a healthy position to take. After all, certain interpretations and commentaries are more difficult to understand than the original works themselves. Why did I ever believe that philosophers themselves would be harder to read? Think of all the great philosophers who were great writers too: Augustine, Plato, Hume, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein (?), Quine, Dennett, Fodor (?), Russell, Descartes, Plotinus…

11) Most analytic philosophers have a rudimentary knowledge of science; though most scientists know next-to-nothing about philosophy. (Lewis Wolpert has a positive distaste for philosophy and philosophers.) Interestingly enough, I have a compendium of science and mathematics which has a philosophy section - all the articles are written by scientists.

12) I was surprised to read that figure, solidity, extension, size, etc. were all deemed subject-relative in the Humean system. This just proves that, in these respects at least, he took more from Berkeley than he did from Locke.

13) I don’t think that there are total empiricists or total rationalists nowadays. The brain must structure experience in some way and to some degree. Similarly, experience generates nearly all conscious or brain processes.

14) Causation doesn’t particularly interest me; but Humean scepticism does. Perhaps my position is more psychological and political than strictly philosophical. I certainly don’t have the arguments for philosophical or analytical scepticism. On the other hand, Hume’s general position seems entirely commendable.

15) Why is causality so important? Because it is the ‘glue of the universe’? Because without necessary connections, science would lose much of its power? The same goes for the inexistence of substance. Lack of a self is fine and dandy. If Hume is right, change, even radical change, wouldn’t be a problem for anyone. Why can’t people change? That’s the fundamental question. There must be something that is as hard as concrete stopping people changing. What is it? It must be physical – that is, neurochemicals and/or possibly anatomical. Do people have a misguided loyalty to their past selves? This is a new possibility. Is it the case?

Hume says that the mind partly determines our experience of the world in contingent and psychological ways. Kant, on the other hand, claims that these determinations are necessary and a priori. Our acquired experiences are passed on, as it were, to the world, according to Hume. Kant claims that we are born with the concepts and categories which partly determine the nature of the world which we experience.

 I’m beginning to understand what Hume is all about. Primarily, his work is an onslaught against rationalist metaphysics. Hume uses the word ‘cause’ uncritically alongside a philosophical critique of our and scientific notions of causation. In this a contradiction? No. He didn’t reject causation in itself, only our conceptions of it. However, Russell, in his History of Western Philosophy, did detect certain contradictions and inconsistencies in Hume’s position.

16) On one hand the Catholic Church proclaims its absolutism and anti-relativism. On the other hand it tells us how it accepted Copernicus and Darwin. Can Catholics have it both ways, or are past adaptations acceptable but contemporary ones unacceptable?

17) 18th century philosophers were cultured men. Hume was an expert on Cicero and Ovid. Kant, likewise, on Horace.

18) Despite the technical detail and the power of the arguments, I still can’t intuitively accept that causation, space and time are not ‘out there’ in the world. Why are my intuitions relevant? Why do they matter? Why do I care at all about intuitions and common-sense? Perhaps the truth is counterintuitive. Is quantum mechanics intuitive or commonsensical? Of course not. Virtually all scientific theories were counterintuitive to the common sense of the lay person.

Kant’s work is extremely complex and difficult, and yet, in places, it isn’t ‘dry’ and ‘obscure’.

I simply assume that counterintuitive things can’t be true. What kind of reasoning lies behind this? Nothing springs immediately to mind. Perhaps it’s just a prejudice and nothing more. I’ve accepted other initially counterintuitive things in the past, so why should I stop now?

19) One reading of Kant’s own work, rather than another interpretation or commentary, both changed my view of Kant and made me understand him better.

20) Quine’s juxtaposition of pragmatism and empiricism, with tiny platonic assumptions about numbers and mathematics in general. He needs to tackle obscure ontologies in order to legitimise his more empiricist assumptions.

'Is music a reflection of society?'

“Is music a reflection of society? Or does it lead society? Or both? If so then what does this tell us about our own society?

“Most of the popular music nowadays is either:
“1) people rapping about sex and drugs. 2) people singing about sex and drugs. 3) people singing about crashing cars into bridges. 4) people rapping or singing about partying.

“Of course most of these people have little to no talent and dress like sluts or "gangsters". There are some artists that are talented and write good music, but those are not as popular and numerable.

“So what say you?” - Ascendant606

******************************************

Music must surely reflect society and also influence society. It depends. You can't be talking about society as a whole because not all the members of any society listen to the same kinds of music. It seems, from the rest of your post, that you mean, specifically, young people and pop music.

The use of the word "society" is always suspect. Are you on about old grannies in a old folks' homes or members of a Muslim gang in Alum Rock? They are both part of British society but I doubt they listen to the same music.

I think you are correct about 'most' pop music being about sex, drugs and stuff. Then again, that's been the case since the 1950s or even before that. (Not sure about people crashing cars into bridges though. Though there was a lot of car-driving and crashing cultures in the 1950s - think of James Dean.)

Perhaps it's unrealistic to expect pop music to be about other things such as quantum mechanics, abortion and 18th century Kantian philosophy. One point of pop music, surely, is that it's not about these kinds of thing. If you want to think about other things, then don't listen too much to pop music. Then again, I suppose that in theory pop music could be about quantum mechanics or daffodils and there is, for example, a lot of Christian pop/rock music and also intellectual and political rock, etc.

In other words, if you truly want something different, go look for it because it exists.

'Try meditation instead of philosophy'

“Have you tried meditation? That will reveal far more to you than any philosopher.”

Of course there are many other quotes which might have been used to open this short essay. And all of them would have shown us how many of the people who advocate meditation or “spiritual but not religious” positions (or lifestyles) have a deep problem with the “logic-chopping” nature of (Western) philosophy.

( I know of many academic/professional philosophers who practice meditation. See here too.)

Yet in order to have come to these negative conclusions about philosophy (or philosophers), these meditators or spiritual-but-not-religious people must have already done at least some philosophy — however basic. How could they have known that their conclusions are true (or correct/right) otherwise? This isn’t to say that their philosophising needed to have been profound, deep or technical. The point is that their anti-philosophy position must be philosophical in whichever way.

In addition, the road to meditation — and the positions which some meditators uphold — are also philosophical; just not philosophical in an (as it were) argument-based way.

In any case, what did the person whose quotes opened this piece mean by his claim that meditation “will reveal far more to you than any philosopher”? More specifically, what does he mean by “reveal”? Of course it may be the case that I’m digging myself deeper into the philosophical shit here by being so damn “semantic”. Perhaps I should simply accept my emotional and/or spiritual responses to his — and other people’s — spiritual and/or emotional words. But what if my emotional — and even spiritual - responses are negative too? In other words, if it is good — as Hitler and Heidegger argued — to “think with the blood”, or, as others have argued, to “think with the spirit” or to “think with one’s emotions”, then what if those who do so reach diametrically-opposed positions? Are such conclusions still equally good? And are the solutions to such — often aggressive or even violent — oppositions also brought about by thinking with the blood/spirit/emotions?

Despite all that, it can still be accepted that philosophy reveals certain things and meditation may reveal other things. In fact it depends which philosophy or philosopher (as well as which meditator and which kind of meditation) we’re talking about.

Transcending the Ego?

On a personal note. I’ve met meditators who are outright egotists. For example, some Western Buddhists (of whichever type — I’m not an expert) are actually “full of the self”. (I’ve also noted many Buddhists, etc. on film, in books, etc. who are vain and arrogant beyond belief.) One way this shows itself is by virtue of the fact that such people keep on telling everyone else that they’ve “cleansed themselves of their selves”. In other words, their “egos” are still fully in place — it’s just the words (and sometimes their behaviour) of such people are different to the “average person” (whoever he or she is).

(Here’s an article which argues that Buddhism teaches us that we should “hold onto our egos”. )

I don’t believe that simply because you meditate a lot that you automatically “transcend the ego”, transcend philosophy, or transcend thought itself. You may simply adopt another philosophy and say different things - all with an equal amount of ego. In fact the meditators I’ve met (as stated) have often been more — not less — egotistical than most other people. Again, it’s just what they say and do that’s different — their egos are still fully in place. Put basically, such people are egotistical about their supposed lack of ego. And, therefore, they can’t have “erased their egos” at all.

[I can be found on Twitter here.]

Einstein was a Fraud

How a person’s politics can determine his or her positions on scientific theories.

This is my reply to a group of comments I discovered on the Online Philosophy Club’s Discussion Forums. In those comments, a DarwinX articulates views which many people held about Albert Einstein — and what was called “Jewish science” — in the 1920s and beyond. Indeed, as DarwinX will show, some people still hold these views today (see here).

DarwinX’s reasons for arguing that “Einstein was a fraud” are entirely to do with politics and the fact that Einstein was Jewish. That is, his criticisms aren’t in the least bit scientific. However, in order to advance political positions on scientific theories, certain seemingly scientific claims will often need to be advanced — even if in very crude forms. This is as true of certain people on the Left as it is true of certain people on the Right. However, in the case of DarwinX at least, it just happens to be someone on the (Far) Right who’s discussed in this respect.

Some people on both the Left (usually on the Far Left) and Right (usually on the Far Right) argue that this complete separation of science from politics is not only “naive” and “simplistic”: it’s also “dangerous”! I’m willing to accept that in certain respects, it may well be so. However, when people’s prime (or only) concern is politics and various social causes, then such people will hardly consider (even for a single second) a scientific theory without viewing it through their powerful and all-encompassing political prisms. And, I believe, that too is dangerous — as history has shown (e.g., from the Nazis in Germany to the Communists in the Soviet Union to what often still happens today).

In any case, the discussion below can be found here. My own comments can be seen under the name PAM (i.e., Paul Austin Murphy).

******************************

This was DarwinX’s first comment:

“The main reason Einstein was chosen to be the ambassador of physics is because he was Jewish and it would have be considered racist to criticize any of his theories. This is how the system uses political correctness to protect corrupt and deviate theories and ideas. Einstein completely obliterated the use of logic in science by introducing his his crazy ideas of relativity and curved space time which has destroyed logical science to this day.”

I don’t believe that today’s kind of political correctness existed when Albert Einstein first made his name as a great physicist in the early 1920s. However, it can of course be said that some kind of political correctness might have existed — even then.

[The video DarwinX links to mentions Antonio Gramsci, whose work didn’t become known outside Italy until the 1930s and it didn’t become widely influential until much later than that. As for the Frankfurt School, which is also mention: it’s main impact was felt post-1945. Einstein, on the other hand, first became a public figure in 1921 when he won the Nobel Prize.]

So this entirely depends on what the words “political correctness” mean.

Anyway, the idea that people — especially scientists — didn’t criticise Einstein’s theories because he was Jewish is incredible. Science simply doesn’t work like that on the whole — or even at all.

For example, what would have happened if another Jewish scientist produced theories which directly contradicted Einstein on relativity and “curved spacetime”? One can almost guarantee that this happened! (Jewish people are very good at criticising… Jewish people. Then again, non-Jewish people are good at criticising non-Jewish people too.) Would that have meant that, for reasons of “political correctness”, scientists would have had to accept both Einstein’s theories and their contradictions because both scientists were Jewish?

In addition, Einstein based a lot of his theories on previous scientific theories and mathematical work (which he freely admitted) which was created by mathematicians and scientists who weren’t Jewish. Does this mean that these non-Jewish bits of Einstein's work aren’t “corrupt” and the Jewish remainder is (to use your word) “corrupt”?

In any case, what’s intrinsically Jewish about relativity theory?

In 20th century philosophy, for example, Jewish philosophers — from Ludwig Wittgenstein to Thomas Nagel — have advanced theories which directly contradicted each other. Does that mean that both a Jewish theory and its direct contradiction are corrupt and therefore equally Jewish?

And I doubt there have been any scientists — except in someone’s imagination — who would have refrained from criticising Einstein’s theories simply because he was Jewish (especially in the 1920s and before). The stronger possibility is in the reverse direction: that Einstein’s theories would have been criticised simply because they were advanced by a Jewish person... Indeed Einstein’s theories were, in fact, criticised for precisely that reason by Adolf Hitler [see here], the National Socialists [see here] and others.

How can scientific theories be corrupt anyway? They can be false, misguided, not based on good theory or evidence, etc. — but corrupt?

If science isn’t a communal activity, then it’s not science at all. And, as a communal activity, science, on the whole, accepts relativity theory and the Einsteinian spacetime - if under suitable conditions. (This doesn’t mean that they will be accepted — as they are — for all time or that they won’t be adapted in some way.)

As for my own position, I simply don’t know enough about physics myself to offer anything new or original on relativity and Einsteinian spacetime. I certainly don’t know enough to criticise these theories. You would need to be a higher mathematician, an advanced physicist or a cosmologist to offer any justifiable criticisms of relativity theory and spacetime — never mind to offer theories which attempt to “refute” them outright.

DarwinX went on to say:

“Science is not a matter of opinion or consensus. There is only truth and reality. A consensus has nothing to do with truth or reality. Organizing science according to the dictates of consensus leads to corruption and bogus science.”

Saying that science is a communal activity isn’t the same thing as saying that scientific truths (or accurate theories about the world) are determined by the vote or by mindless agreement. The point about a scientific community is that it’s better to trust many workers in the field than to trust some individual scientist (or pseudo-scientist) who comes up with a theory he simply believes to be true.

Science is so complex and intricate that one person could rarely have the whole truth on a single theory or position. Even great and original scientists — such as Newton and, yes, Einstein — worked largely within scientific traditions and communities even if their new theories were indeed original and even revolutionary. (Therefore they weren’t immediately accepted by most scientists.) In any case, despite the originality of such scientists, that originality and accuracy still had to be accepted and agreed upon by the scientific community as a whole — and that happened.

So why should anyone accept the views of a lone scientist if he’s working in complete isolation and with no back up from anyone else other than those who already agree with him (perhaps for political reasons)? This is especially true if those people who agree with a lone “scientist” (on, say, the contradictions of relativity theory) aren’t themselves scientists. This simply leads to the question:

Why are people accepting the theories of these lone (or eccentric) scientists when they aren’t themselves scientists and when most other scientists reject their theories?

All I can say is that there are non-scientific (e.g., political) reasons — not reasons of what DarwinX calls “truth and reality” — which are motivating these agreements with these (as it were) alternative scientists or theories.

Then there was more from DarwinX:

“Don’t be intimidated by science theory. Real science is not difficult to understand. Bogus science tends to be over complicated and confusing, mainly because its main objective is to confuse and complicate simple matters.”

I’ve never heard that said before. Does this mean that science as it’s presented in popular-science books or science as it’s done by scientists themselves? There’s a massive difference between the two.

True; some popular-science writers do a marvellous job of clearly expressing scientific ideas. However, even they wouldn’t argue that “real science is not difficult to understand”. The basics aren’t difficult, sure; though that’s because all the mathematics, specialised technical theory and detail are simply missed out of (most) popular-science books. So popular science books are easy to understand. However, popular (or simplified) expositions of science aren’t themselves science. They are about science.

Everything said about science by DarwinX about Einstein is deeply imbued with his political and racial views on things. (Whether his general political positions are acceptable is irrelevant to that point.) His politics is in the driving seat and it’s completely determining his positions on science. Now that may not be a bad thing in itself. It depends on how much DarwinX really knows about science — not about the popular expositions of science by non-scientists and even sometimes by scientists. Again, his primary concern is politics and race; not science. His politics is being applied across the board so that he even sees politics in everything scientific — and, no doubt, in all things non-scientific too. This means that DarwinX is as ideologically and politically driven and fixated as the “politically correct” people he’s arguing against — perhaps more so.

[I can be found on Twitter here.]

The Being of Man

"The reality of the external world to which science points has no psychic depth, no depth of being. It is a plastic mass of events. When scientists study Man, they want to prove that the mind, the psyche, the being of Man, is the effect of bodily existence and thus an effect of matter. They conclude that if the mind is caused by matter, then it is basically unreal, secondary, not a primary reality." - Granth

I'm not sure if there is such a consensus in science on the mind. Even in the limited domain of 'materialist' philosophers of mind, I don't think that there is such a consensus.

Granth refers to "no psychic depth, no depth of being" of science. These technical terms seem to be taken from a specific philosophical tradition so it will be hard for people unfamiliar with that tradition to know what such locutions mean.

Granth also says that scientists (all of them?)

"want to prove that the mind, the psyche, the being of Man, is the effect of bodily existence and thus an effect of matter. They conclude that if the mind is caused by matter, then it is basically unreal, secondary, not a primary reality".

It doesn't follow that if a scientists argues, or shows, that "the mind is caused by matter" that he also believes that it is "unreal, secondary". A forest fire can be caused by a discarded cigarette but the fire is still real even if it has other causes. The mind and brain can even be acceptably different domains, according to scientists, and it still be the case that the brain, or something larger, is the "cause" of the mind. Scientists, on the whole, are no longer interested in erasing mind or consciousness from the equation. In fact, only a few scientists ever were completely that way inclined.

As for "the Being of man" - that seems to be the technical language of a specific philosophical tradition which, presumably, not all posters on this website will be aware of even if they know much philosophy. What is "the Being of man"?

Frank Ramsey's Paradox of Londoners & Their Hairs

Although Frank Ramsey's proof isn't exactly a paradox, it is worth mentioning anyway.

Ramsey set out to prove that there were exactly two Londoners with exactly the same number of hairs on their heads.

How did he prove that?

Firstly, when Ramsey was writing he noted that there were more than a million Londoners. He also noted - though God knows how - that there were less than a million hairs on any one Londoner's head.

So how do we move from those two truths to the truth that there are at least two Londoners who have exactly the same number of hairs on their heads?

Well, for a start, there are more Londoners than hairs on any single Londoner’s head. That is, there are more than a million Londoners; though no person has more than a million hairs on his or her head. So what? This has been expressed in the following way:

“If there are more pigeons than pigeonholes, then at least two pigeons must share a hole.”

This means that because there are more Londoners than there are hairs on any one individual's head, then at least two Londoners must share the same number of hairs. How does that prove what it claims to prove? And doesn't it depend on how many more (than a million) Londoners there are?

For example, will this proof still work if there were only one million and one Londoners? In addition, what about the possibility of massive coincidence or high proportions with large numbers of hairs or very small numbers of hairs? Doesn't the proof depend on a certain level of statistical balance?

The argument seems to be: 

i) Because there are over a million Londoners,

ii) though only a maximum of a million hairs on any one person's head,

iii) and since there are a million hairs to share between over a million people [eh? that's wrong],

iv) then two persons or more must share the same number of hairs.

Put it this way: if there are ten people in a room who have to share 9 or less apples, then two people will need to share an apple.

Put it another way: if there were a million Londoners and a maximum number of a million hairs on a Londoner’s head, then each Londoner could have hairs ranging from one to one million.

In theory at least, every Londoner could have a different number of hairs on his and her head. But what happens when there are more than a million Londoners but still only a maximum of one million hairs on any one Londoner’s head? It can't be the case that every Londoner will have a different number of hairs – even in theory. This will mean, then, that at least two Londoners will have the same number of hairs.

But there's still something suspect about this proof.

In any case, this doesn't seem to be a paradox, or that complex, or even that interesting; though perhaps I've missed the profound or complex bit.

The Expectancy Paradox

One scientist has a theory that people will countenance - or even commit - cruelty if it's approved by some kind of authority figure. That theory intuitively has a lot of plausibility. However, that's not the point of the paradox.

The said scientist carried out an experiment on ten people (i.e., subjects).

The experiment is to see if the ten subjects will press a button which will deliver an electric shock if ordered to do so by an authority figure (given a suitably rational or “scientific” reason to do so).

However, unbeknownst to him, it's the scientist who's the real subject of the experiment. That is, his ten subjects aren't being tested – he is! In fact the ten subjects know what's going on and are given fake electrical shocks. The scientist, on the other hand, doesn't know what's going on. He only knows about his own experiment; not the experiment upon him.

Again, this paradox isn't about the nature of meta-tests or even about why - or if - people really do commit acts of cruelty when told to do so by authority figures. This paradox is actually about the “fudge factor” or “experimenter bias effect". In other words, the scientist is testing his research students and these meta-testers are testing the scientist who's testing research students.

The phrases “fudge factor” and “experimenter bias effect” actually refer to the fact that when a researcher or scientist expects to “discover” or find a certain result, he's very likely to get that result. (Needless to say, when the research or science involves anything which is in any way political in nature, this is even more likely to be the case.)

In Professor Smith's case, his “experimenter bias” is leading him to expect (or want) his subjects to "turn Nazi” and be all too keen to press the electric shock button. It ends up that most of them do so.

Professor Arse, on the other hand, is expecting (or wanting) his subjects not to turn Nazi by being all too willing to press the electric shock button. Yes, most of the don't!

In other words, each scientist has set up the experiment to get the results he wants (for political, psychological, scientific, etc. reasons). In other words, both scientists are fudging - if at an unconscious level.

This bias (or fudging) is brought about in this case by Professor Smith shouting at his students/subjects to press the button. In other words, he wants them to press the button in order to “prove” his theory. Professor Arse, on the other hand, whispers the command to press the button because he doesn't really want them to.

It's said that neither scientist is aware of what he's doing. However, what they are doing is bringing about a self-fulfilling prophesy. (Despite that, I find it hard to accept that they literally know nothing about what they're doing because if that were truly the case, then they wouldn't be doing what they're doing, surely.)

In any case, these experimental and political biases of the two professors were themselves the subject of an experiment by other (meta) scientists. Yes, you guessed it: if the bias of the two scientists is proven or demonstrated by these meta-scientists, and they've also concluded that such bias is widespread (even) in science, then what of themselves? Are they also biased? Indeed was this experiment itself, on other scientists, a perfect example of the “experimenter bias effect” or the “fudge factor”? Are these meta-scientists as biased (or even more baised) than the scientists they were experimenting upon? And if not, why not?

The point is: just as the object-scientists were trying to do tests on people's reactions to the orders of authority figures; so the meta-scientists were testing the object-scientists in order to elicit the reality or nature of scientific bias. In other words, are these meta-scientists being biased about the nature or reality of scientific bias?

This problem can be put in its logical form:

i) The meta-scientists concluded that much - or all - scientific research or testing involves at least some element of bias.

ii) This piece of meta-science is also a piece or scientific research and testing. Therefore it must have contained at least some element of bias.

Though does scientific bias also mean scientific invalidity? If it does, then this piece of meta-science is scientifically invalid: just as invalid as the tests on the button-pressing subjects.

In addition, if scientific bias means scientific invalidity, does that also mean that scientists, and laypersons, have no reason to believe a word of what these meta-scientists have to say about their meta-scientific test or experiment? The problem is: intuitively both the object-test and the meta-test must contain at least some truth or accuracy! Indeed they may well contain a lot of truth or accuracy. This paradox seems to lead to the result that both tests should be rejected. Yet surely that can't be the case!

The other conclusion is that we must simply learn to live with a certain degree of scientific bias; just as we may well do in all other areas of life. Sure, if the bias is spotted, then rectify it. However, it is both misguided and even illogical to expect zero bias. In fact we may even say that it's unscientific to expect (or want) zero bias in science (or anywhere else for that matter).

William Poundstone suggests making a distinction between falsehood and invalidity. He seems to mean that even if bias is a fact: it's still the case that what the test or theory says in the end is simply either true or false. Or, as he puts it,

“if the experiment is merely invalid (through careless procedure, lack of controls, etc.), its result may be true or false”. (130)

Bias (or invalid procedures) may still lead to truth (just as true conclusion can be the result of bad reasoning or bad science (or no science)).

You can ask, however, that if there is bias (or an invalid procedure,) how could it possibly lead to truth? And if it did lead to truth, surely it would only do so accidentally or coincidentally.

For example, the Pythagoreans believed that the earth was a rotating globe. Though they believed that for all the wrong reasons.

However, we're talking about scientific experiments here, not Pythagorean speculation or philosophy. In a scientific sense, if an invalid procedure or bias leads to truth, that would be of little interest to science or scientists. Indeed typical scientists (if they exist) would be hard-pressed to make sense of an invalid procedure or bias leading to scientific truth. Though perhaps either they too are biased or their stance on science is philosophically naïve.

Poundstone offers two logical alternatives to this paradox.

i) We can assume that the meta-study is valid. (That is, what leads up to the results and the result itself are valid and sound/true.)

ii) Yet if it's true, then all (other) studies/tests are invalid and unsound.

iii) And if all tests are invalid, then this meta-test is also invalid and so can't produce a true result.

In other words, we're lead to the conclusion that we can't see its conclusion as true – even if we wanted to.

Alternatively:

i) We can assume that the meta-test is invalid.

ii) However, even though the meta-test can be seen as invalid, its result can still be seen as true.

iii) And, by inference, if the object-test can also be seen as invalid like the meta-test, then its results can also be seen as true (like the meta-test).

Here, then, we have two cases of invalid procedures leading to true results. Though, as I said earlier, what's the point of having scientifically true results (or theories) alongside scientifically invalid or unsound procedures/experiments/tests? And as I also said, scientists will surely claim that you can't have the mutual pair of invalid or biased procedures/tests alongside true results.... or can you?