The relevance of credentials in science debates

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Sherlock Holmes

The relevance of credentials in science debates

Post #1

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

Recently the question of the overall relevance of educational qualifications and other "credentials" when discussing or commenting on various subjects, came up, I pointed out Noam Chomsky's well know position on this (one which I share) and I quoted him. Well here's the full quotation: (added emphasis mine)
Noam Chomsky wrote: “In my own professional work I have touched on a variety of different fields. I’ve done work in mathematical linguistics, for example, without any professional credentials in mathematics; in this subject I am completely self-taught, and not very well taught. But I’ve often been invited by universities to speak on mathematical linguistics at mathematics seminars and colloquia.

No one has ever asked me whether I have the appropriate credentials to speak on these subjects; the mathematicians couldn’t care less. What they want to know is what I have to say. No one has ever objected to my right to speak, asking whether I have a doctor’s degree in mathematics, or whether I have taken advanced courses in the subject. That would never have entered their minds.

They want to know whether I am right or wrong, whether the subject is interesting or not, whether better approaches are possible… the discussion dealt with the subject, not with my right to discuss it.
But on the other hand, in discussion or debate concerning social issues or American foreign policy….

The issue is constantly raised, often with considerable venom. I’ve repeatedly been challenged on grounds of credentials, or asked, what special training do I have that entitles you to speak on these matters. The assumption is that people like me, who are outsiders from a professional viewpoint, are not entitled to speak on such things.

Compare mathematics and the political sciences… it’s quite striking. In mathematics, in physics, people are concerned with what you say, not with your certification. But in order to speak about social reality, you must have the proper credentials, particularly if you depart from the accepted framework of thinking. Generally speaking, it seems fair to say that the richer the intellectual substance of a field, the less there is a concern for credentials, and the greater is the concern for content.”
So when debating science in these kinds of forums, should we insist on certain qualifications before considering someone's argument or should we evaluate arguments purely on the strength of the case the make? If we disagree with someone's opinion and they are not "qualified" does that fact justify us in dismissing what they have to say?

Sherlock Holmes

Re: The relevance of credentials in science debates

Post #51

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

Jose Fly wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 2:52 pm
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 2:37 pm And by "fundamental ignorance" you mean avoid suggesting that life on earth did not evolve on the basis of common ancestry?
No, I mean not knowing things they teach in middle school biology, like that bacteria are a Domain and thinking that "but they're still bacteria" is a valid argument.
That is to question a fundamental evolution belief is tantamount to fundamental ignorance, yes?
Nope. As I said before, if a person's denial of evolution really were based in a good understanding of the subject, you'd expect that to come through in their arguments, such as properly using terminology, showing knowledge of the current state of the science, citations to and in-depth discussions of published literature, citations to and in-depth discussions of the data, showing understanding and competence in how data is analyzed, etc.

When you don't see any of that and instead see lots of empty rhetoric about being "silenced", arguments about credentials, argumentation via quotes, grousing about peer review, egregious use of inapt analogies, etc., it's a good bet the person's denial isn't at all based in science.

Further, behavior provides additional insight. When the same person habitually ignores scientific information people provide and refuses to back up their assertions, that's more confirmation that their denial isn't based in science.

Then for the cherry on the sundae, when the same person often discusses the subject in religious terms it's a good bet that their denial is rooted in religion/theology and not science.

IOW, it's like the jigsaw puzzle analogy.....when all the pieces are put together, a very clear and obvious picture emerges that only the staunchest denialists can refuse to acknowledge.
Well I for one do not regard you as a qualified or impartial judge of some arguments against evolution. Each time you are presented with something challenging you deny it is challenging and instead launch into complaints about "qualifications" and how people's "religious motives" are sufficient for you to reject an argument.

You truly believe with all your heart that all life sprang from primitive life billions of years ago despite numerous epistemological problems, you will make up any counter argument you can to avoid confronting challenges.

I can dig out many examples of this from our conversations if you think I am mistaken, would you like me to do that?

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Re: The relevance of credentials in science debates

Post #52

Post by Jose Fly »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 3:11 pm Well I for one do not regard you as a qualified or impartial judge of some arguments against evolution. Each time you are presented with something challenging you deny it is challenging and instead launch into complaints about "qualifications" and how people's "religious motives" are sufficient for you to reject an argument.

You truly believe with all your heart that all life sprang from primitive life billions of years ago despite numerous epistemological problems, you will make up any counter argument you can to avoid confronting challenges.

I can dig out many examples of this from our conversations if you think I am mistaken, would you like me to do that?
Yeah, I'd really like to see that.
Being apathetic is great....or not. I don't really care.

Sherlock Holmes

Re: The relevance of credentials in science debates

Post #53

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

Jose Fly wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 3:42 pm
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 3:11 pm Well I for one do not regard you as a qualified or impartial judge of some arguments against evolution. Each time you are presented with something challenging you deny it is challenging and instead launch into complaints about "qualifications" and how people's "religious motives" are sufficient for you to reject an argument.

You truly believe with all your heart that all life sprang from primitive life billions of years ago despite numerous epistemological problems, you will make up any counter argument you can to avoid confronting challenges.

I can dig out many examples of this from our conversations if you think I am mistaken, would you like me to do that?
Yeah, I'd really like to see that.
I postulated:
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Form observations made showing small changes over short time frames, they extrapolate that larger and larger deviations from some start genome over longer and longer time is undoubtedly feasible. But how can that be claimed when there might well be self limiting mechanisms or constraining mechanisms that are simply not evident in a lab, might only begin emerge after thousands or hundreds of thousands of years?
That is how can we show that the genome can accumulate novelty over millions of years just because we've seen small adaptive changes over a few years. This is a totally reasonable thing to discuss, a totally reasonable question, yet as usual you despise such questions and so right away do all you can to get rid of it:
Jose Fly wrote: If you have evidence of the existence of these alleged mechanisms, present it. Otherwise you're merely invoking unspecified things that only exist in your imagination and wondering why scientists don't take them into account. Hopefully you think about it a bit and eventually understand why that is.
See? you said "only exist in your imagination" a disparaging and dismissive post, no direct addressing of the challenge for you. Just get rid of it, imply the person asking it has no understanding of the matter.

The fact is you DO assume that a bacterium genome can continually accumulate novelty and functionality over billions of years culminating in say humans, you MUST assume that because you only have direct evidence of changes over a TINY timeframe.

But rather than discuss this, consider it, you seek to reject it with dismissive and derogatory replies.

This is all you can do when I confront you like this because it is YOU who lacks the scientific and impartial ability to analyze such question, you can't even bring yourself to admit that you do assume things, well we both know why, there are chinks in the armor Jose and when people talk about these you do not want to go there.

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Re: The relevance of credentials in science debates

Post #54

Post by Jose Fly »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 4:03 pm
Jose Fly wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 3:42 pm
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 3:11 pm Well I for one do not regard you as a qualified or impartial judge of some arguments against evolution. Each time you are presented with something challenging you deny it is challenging and instead launch into complaints about "qualifications" and how people's "religious motives" are sufficient for you to reject an argument.

You truly believe with all your heart that all life sprang from primitive life billions of years ago despite numerous epistemological problems, you will make up any counter argument you can to avoid confronting challenges.

I can dig out many examples of this from our conversations if you think I am mistaken, would you like me to do that?
Yeah, I'd really like to see that.
I postulated:
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Form observations made showing small changes over short time frames, they extrapolate that larger and larger deviations from some start genome over longer and longer time is undoubtedly feasible. But how can that be claimed when there might well be self limiting mechanisms or constraining mechanisms that are simply not evident in a lab, might only begin emerge after thousands or hundreds of thousands of years?
That is how can we show that the genome can accumulate novelty over millions of years just because we've seen small adaptive changes over a few years. This is a totally reasonable thing to discuss, a totally reasonable question, yet as usual you despise such questions and so right away do all you can to get rid of it:
Jose Fly wrote: If you have evidence of the existence of these alleged mechanisms, present it. Otherwise you're merely invoking unspecified things that only exist in your imagination and wondering why scientists don't take them into account. Hopefully you think about it a bit and eventually understand why that is.
See? you said "only exist in your imagination" a disparaging and dismissive post, no direct addressing of the challenge for you. Just get rid of it, imply the person asking it has no understanding of the matter.

The fact is you DO assume that a bacterium genome can continually accumulate novelty and functionality over billions of years culminating in say humans, you MUST assume that because you only have direct evidence of changes over a TINY timeframe.

But rather than discuss this, consider it, you seek to reject it with dismissive and derogatory replies.

This is all you can do when I confront you like this because it is YOU who lacks the scientific and impartial ability to analyze such question.
Seriously? That's the best you have? Hilarious.

So you posit "self limiting mechanisms", but don't define them, provide any details about what they are or even might be, nor do you provide any evidence at all for their existence.

And to you, me pointing that out is avoiding the issue?

Wow. I gotta say, this behavior and manner of thinking is positively fascinating to observe. So if you have another example where you think I avoided an issue, I'd love to see it.
Being apathetic is great....or not. I don't really care.

Sherlock Holmes

Re: The relevance of credentials in science debates

Post #55

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

Jose Fly wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 4:09 pm
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 4:03 pm
Jose Fly wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 3:42 pm
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 3:11 pm Well I for one do not regard you as a qualified or impartial judge of some arguments against evolution. Each time you are presented with something challenging you deny it is challenging and instead launch into complaints about "qualifications" and how people's "religious motives" are sufficient for you to reject an argument.

You truly believe with all your heart that all life sprang from primitive life billions of years ago despite numerous epistemological problems, you will make up any counter argument you can to avoid confronting challenges.

I can dig out many examples of this from our conversations if you think I am mistaken, would you like me to do that?
Yeah, I'd really like to see that.
I postulated:
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Form observations made showing small changes over short time frames, they extrapolate that larger and larger deviations from some start genome over longer and longer time is undoubtedly feasible. But how can that be claimed when there might well be self limiting mechanisms or constraining mechanisms that are simply not evident in a lab, might only begin emerge after thousands or hundreds of thousands of years?
That is how can we show that the genome can accumulate novelty over millions of years just because we've seen small adaptive changes over a few years. This is a totally reasonable thing to discuss, a totally reasonable question, yet as usual you despise such questions and so right away do all you can to get rid of it:
Jose Fly wrote: If you have evidence of the existence of these alleged mechanisms, present it. Otherwise you're merely invoking unspecified things that only exist in your imagination and wondering why scientists don't take them into account. Hopefully you think about it a bit and eventually understand why that is.
See? you said "only exist in your imagination" a disparaging and dismissive post, no direct addressing of the challenge for you. Just get rid of it, imply the person asking it has no understanding of the matter.

The fact is you DO assume that a bacterium genome can continually accumulate novelty and functionality over billions of years culminating in say humans, you MUST assume that because you only have direct evidence of changes over a TINY timeframe.

But rather than discuss this, consider it, you seek to reject it with dismissive and derogatory replies.

This is all you can do when I confront you like this because it is YOU who lacks the scientific and impartial ability to analyze such question.
Seriously? That's the best you have? Hilarious.

So you posit "self limiting mechanisms", but don't define them, provide any details about what they are or even might be, nor do you provide any evidence at all for their existence.

And to you, me pointing that out is avoiding the issue?

Wow. I gotta say, this is positively fascinating to observe. So if you have another example where you think I avoided an issue, I'd love to see it.
Do you assume that a bacterium genome has accumulated increasing novelty/functionality over billions of years culminating in man? I won't expect an answer because you never answer direct probing questions, you prefer a rhetorical approach like "Hilarious" and "positively fascinating to observe" and so on, no science, logic or reasoning for you, not when your on the back foot, just try to make light of it because after all that's all your capable of doing in these situations.

Any intelligent person can see that of course this is an implicit assumption in evolutionary theory, the assumption that this can sometimes happen, yet there are some who just cannot bring themselves to admit this.

Evolution is built on a multitude of such far fetched untestable fanciful assumptions, pretend it isn't if you want, I can't stop you but any honest visitor to these threads will be able to see the truth.

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Re: The relevance of credentials in science debates

Post #56

Post by Jose Fly »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 4:17 pm Do you assume that a bacterium genome has accumulated increasing novelty/functionality over billions of years culminating in man?
No, I conclude that based on the data.
I won't expect an answer because you never answer direct probing questions, you prefer a rhetorical approach like "Hilarious" and "positively fascinating to observe" and so on, no science, logic or reasoning for you, not when your on the back foot, just try to make light of it because after all that's all your capable of doing in these situations.
Well that didn't age well.
Any intelligent person can see that of course this is an implicit assumption in evolutionary theory, the assumption that this can sometimes happen, yet there are some who just cannot bring themselves to admit this.

Evolution is built on a multitude of such far fetched untestable fanciful assumptions, pretend it isn't if you want, I can't stop you but any honest visitor to these threads will be able to see the truth.
If you had definitions/descriptions of these mechanisms as well as evidence for their existence, and had presented them to evolutionary scientists who subsequently ignored it all, then you could reasonably make the above claims.

But as it currently stands, your argument is that evolutionary scientists are assuming the non-existence of mechanisms that you cannot define, describe, or provide evidence for, and have not presented to any evolutionary scientist.

And you see that as a good argument? Fascinating. Please continue.
Being apathetic is great....or not. I don't really care.

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Re: The relevance of credentials in science debates

Post #57

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

Jose Fly wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 4:28 pm
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 4:17 pm Do you assume that a bacterium genome has accumulated increasing novelty/functionality over billions of years culminating in man?
No, I conclude that based on the data.
There we have it, as predictable as the sun rise, even hinting that evolution rests upon assumptions just won't be tolerated!

You actually expect me to not see this for what it is? evasion? Any "data" will itself be either based on assumptions or itself extrapolated - which to all intents and purpose is an assumption.

If you don't understand the role of assumption and induction and where you are implicitly relying on these then you really might want to review science basics, as it stands you are it seems relying on scientism not science.

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Re: The relevance of credentials in science debates

Post #58

Post by Jose Fly »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 4:44 pm There we have it, as predictable as the sun rise, even hinting that evolution rests upon assumptions just won't be tolerated!
LOL...yes, the entirety of evolutionary science rests upon the assumption of the non-existence of mechanisms that no one has defined, described, shown evidence for, or presented to evolutionary biologists.

Congratulations Sherlock...well done. :lol:
You actually expect me to not see this for what it is? evasion? Any "data" will itself be either based on assumptions or itself extrapolated - which to all intents and purpose is an assumption.

If you don't understand the role of assumption and where you are implicitly relying on it then you know less about science than even I thought.
If you truly think this is a valid argument against evolution, I'll just let that speak for itself.
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Re: The relevance of credentials in science debates

Post #59

Post by Purple Knight »

Sherlock Holmes wrote: Wed Mar 30, 2022 4:06 pm Recently the question of the overall relevance of educational qualifications and other "credentials" when discussing or commenting on various subjects, came up, I pointed out Noam Chomsky's well know position on this (one which I share) and I quoted him. Well here's the full quotation: (added emphasis mine)
Noam Chomsky wrote:Compare mathematics and the political sciences… it’s quite striking. In mathematics, in physics, people are concerned with what you say, not with your certification. But in order to speak about social reality, you must have the proper credentials, particularly if you depart from the accepted framework of thinking. Generally speaking, it seems fair to say that the richer the intellectual substance of a field, the less there is a concern for credentials, and the greater is the concern for content.
This is definitely a thing. It's a thing I've thought about specifically along these exact lines as Chomsky.

I'm going to say I don't know when we should be focused on credentials and I think it's perfectly fine not only not to know, but to speak up and say I don't know. Below are simply my thoughts on the matter. At the end of the day, I don't know.

Generous Interpretation:
It might be something that happens when laymen can't be expected to understand the processes involved and really should just trust the experts, and (very important) the consequences of having a certain understanding are nevertheless very relevant to those laymen (blued the bit where this disagrees with Chomsky). If there really was some poisonous idea that was false, but that couldn't be shown to a layman was false, but affected society drastically, this is the exact kind of dynamic that would develop. You would have actual experts saying no, no don't do that thing, lots of people demanding why not or making plausible cases why they should do that thing, and the only possible rebuttal would be, you have no idea what you're talking about, you're not an expert.

Cynical Interpretation:
There exists a 1984-style tyranny, pretty much all over the world, and they are quite rationally concerned with objections to how they want to rule. This leads to any way of thinking that affects what the laws ought to be in a way inconsistent with their chosen method of rule being dogpile-scrutinised with anything they can throw at the wall and make stick, and the easiest way is to control the field and then say trust the experts.

Either way, I don't think it's the intellectual depth of field that's the factor here. So there I disagree with Chomsky. Whether it's benevolent experts actually acting for our own good, and we just can't understand, or whether it's a bunch of evil despots trying to bring about 1984, the relevant factor is how much it affects society, the laymen, and what the laws ought to be. I will say that if it's the first scenario, I don't think forcing methods of societal organisation on people that help them, but that they cannot understand the raison d'etre for, is misguided. It's misguided in the same way of my strongest objection to religion: Faith takes away our agency, our choice, and our humanity. It's a castle built on the shoddiest of foundations.

Sherlock Holmes

Re: The relevance of credentials in science debates

Post #60

Post by Sherlock Holmes »

Jose Fly wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 4:47 pm
Sherlock Holmes wrote: Fri Apr 08, 2022 4:44 pm There we have it, as predictable as the sun rise, even hinting that evolution rests upon assumptions just won't be tolerated!
LOL...yes, the entirety of evolutionary science rests upon the assumption of the non-existence of mechanisms that no one has defined, described, shown evidence for, or presented to evolutionary biologists.
Which biology book did you read that in? or is it another example of attempted rhetoric?

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