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Alex

Andrew Beckwith I see what you are saying, but my emphasis is a little different (take a look at my subsequent discussion with the author). The comment you've quoted also has more to do with this problem you identified in respect of another essay on here:
"In a word, the bloat in this is in huge facilities like CERN with few rivals as to cross checking. As an example the Fermi data sets hinted directly at the Higgs, but when Fermi was partly decommissioned, it took YEARS before some of the signal analysis of the signals were dredged up as a partial comparison as to the Higgs experiment in CERN."

I think you are correct in your comment above.

I would really appreciate your thought on my paper ("Self-Appropriation and Respect in a Moral Scientific Community"), as I'm hoping for feedback on my reasoning there! Do you have an essay submitted?

Have a good day!

Indeed! And that has a parallel in the US/Commonwealth legal systems where an adversarial approach is followed to scrutinize evidence and allegations, and in that context it works really well. The adversarial approach to justice was one of the greatest innovations in jurisprudence, and one can see the merits of applying a similar approach in the sciences.

You're right about the attribution (I sourced it from Franklin). My second point is along the lines that, given the (bad science) tendency to pursue positive results, this growing lack of rigor might pose a challenge to the sustainable implementation of the falsification process. Or, more to the point, we'd need to create the underlying culture or motivation to adopt it. It's not a direct criticism so much as a statement about the current state of affairs (which I touch on in my own essay). The null results point was illustrative of the problematic underlying culture.

Thanks for your clearly written, accessible essay! I have a question, based on some of what you say (I've excerpted a couple of lines from your essay which I think encapsulates what I am referring to):

"From a philosophical point of view, beauty and logic are essential for any theory in physics. Beauty implies that there should be only one theory; it should be simple and complete with minimum arbitrariness."

I understan

Had another read through. It looks like you're describing a scientific dialectic? One aspect that might be a challenging obstacle to overcome is that this would require the scientific community whole-heartedly embrace null results. Franklin et al point out that:
Modern science’s professional culture prizes positive results, and offers
relatively few rewards to those who fail to find statistically significant relationships in their data. It also esteems apparently groundbreaking results far more
than attempts to replicate earlier research. PhDs, grant funding, publications,
promotions, lateral moves to more prestigious universities, professional
esteem, public attention—they all depend upon positive results that seem to
reveal something new. A scientist who tries to build his career on checking old
findings or publishing negative results isn’t likely to get very far.

A last observation: this "tree" might work well in a field like physics, where replicability is not the foremost challenge. However, it may have significant limits in psychology, social sciences and perhaps to some extent even neuroscience. Because it will depend very heavily on null results, replicability is critical, but these same fields present manifold challenges in that regard.

I hope I have not misunderstood anything! Your paper is great food for thought and I think such a schema has the potential to play a crucial role in a reimagined scientific project that is focused on eliminating bias, unexamined assumptions, and non-empirical influences.

Well referenced and comprehensive - I'd like to use this essay as a reference-point for my own exploration, and thank you for introducing me to Caillé!

'...Caillé et al. (2014, p. 30) use ‘convivialism’ “to describe all
those elements in existing systems of belief, secular or religious, that help us identify principles
for enabling human beings simultaneously to compete and cooperate with one another, with a
shared concern to safeguard the world and in the full knowledge that we form part of that world
and that its natural resources are finite.” '

You and I touch on similar aspects, but I like the "conviviality" approach. I think there is somewhat of a parallel in Paul Ricoeur's idea of "solicitude", which forms the second consideration in his petite éthique ie "to aim to live with and for others in just institutions".

Thanks, this is a piece of writing that warrants spending a bit more time considering! Clearly written. I definitely want to re-read it a couple of times before commenting.

Stefan Weckbach Agree. I came across a study demonstrating (rightly or wrongly) that scientists are generally regarded as "more moral" and reliable than other sampled populations. But change has to come from within! The biggest threat I think is that we face a long-term cycle of decline where nobody wins. Alistair MacIntyre points this out in "After Virtue".

I enjoyed your essay, and will definitely be checking out Kripal's archive, though I fear I might get trapped in a rabbit hole and miss out on sleep!

Do you have any thoughts on _how to pragmatically foster curiosity/willingness to take risks? What incentives do you think might be required? I ask this because it seems to me that there are whole fields where researchers, especially younger ones, seem to be trapped within ever-shrinking domains, neither having the time nor the resources to peer over the edge of their particular silos.

Thanks for an eminently readable essay. The themes you identify keep cropping up time and again, without a critical mass of engagement coming from within the scientific community.

"[Can science] as a whole ... prosper without seriously engaging in foundational and philosophical reflection. I believe that while it may prosper for some time, the lack of such foundations will ultimately prove a limit-ing factor."

Well, that's the crux of it, and I think we are already seeing it in more "abstract" fields ie fields that are not seen as immediately utile, say, for example, in grant distributions and funding. I think it's a little depressing to say the least!

I've touched on similar points in my essay, identifying the limiting factor with the pervasive effect of unexamined general bias and over-reliance on uncritical "commonsense". Unfortunately, I think the only meaningful change will need to come from within the community - a prospect that at this stage still seems remote.

Interesting paper with lots to engage with. Going to have to spend some time with it on a second pass!

Can you please give a worked example of the method applied to a simple real world example?

The ethical challenges facing science have taken on added exigency in the 21st century, posing both external and internal threats to the continued progress and viability of the scientific project. The interminable debate around questions of ethics in science have not yielded practical solutions in response to these challenges, and most approaches today are characterised by solutionism and disregard for the long view. This paper explores pragmatic ways to foster the necessary conditions to responsibly solve novel ethical-practical problems, by centring the self-appropriation of individual participants in the social ecosystem underlying scientific endeavour. With reference to Bernard Lonergan’s conception of the underlying structure of human cognition and his critical realist approach to ethics, as well as the practical wisdom of Paul Ricoeur, this paper outlines an ethical approach in which recognition respect acts as a key operator in responsible decision-making, in the context of a sustainable moral scientific community oriented towards the good of order, to counteract the harmful long-term effects of bias.

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