r/PhilosophyofScience

I'm referring to one of the interpretations of quantum physics. After reading Karl Popper's theory of falsifiability, I'm wondering if the Hidden-variable hypothesis is a pseudo-scientific proposition because no conceivable empirical phenomena seem ever to be able to disprove it.

Years ago probably around 1980 or 1990 I read in some philosophy journal the following allegory about the importance of notation.  On some island the natives had invented mathematics specifically addition and multiplication but they wrote formulae on coconut shells (or maybe seashells, anyway something round), with the terms around the edge of the shell, and the answer in the middle, and  so they took symmetry for granted and did not realize it was a thing.  Then one day one of them invented subtraction and was burned at the stake for maintaining that somehow 2 – 4 is not the same as 4 – 2 (which both looked the same to them).  I have tried repeatedly to find this article since then by Googling and so-called AI but have failed.

What do you think about the nowadays seemingly very popular idea that the impartiality or value-neutrality of scientific inference from evidence is a myth, and passé as a regulative ideal? This is not the old relativism vs logical positivism debate, to note.

I‘ve come to this conclusion after watching a debate between a orthobro streamer called JimBob and a professor who studies biology called Ed Dutton on modern day debate. Rhetorically, Jim absolutely mopped the floor with a PHD holder on a subject he is vastly more educated on than Jim will ever be and that’s because Jim was attacking the philosphical assumptions underpinning evolutionary biology instead of the actual physical facts. Some of those assumptions include methodological naturalism, uniformitarianism, nominalism etc. and professor Dutton was wholly unequipped to answer such questions.

I want to make it very clear that I am on Dutton’s side of the debate here but it did distraught me to see him unable to respond to which is honestly a whole bunch of overly complicated pseudo philosophical rhetoric and sophistry. It’s a very dishonest tactic that I rarely see called out as much with rigor in comparison to debates where all that’s being talked about are the facts because they’re much harder to respond to and much easier for guys like JimBob to take advantage of and peddle their bullshit to unsuspecting viewers who don’t know about this topic.

There is a growing amount of fundamentalist debaters like Jimbob who think they can dismiss basic science by just philosophizing it away in a complicated manner and a lot of their rhetoric is sophisticated enough that it requires a thorough understanding of philosophy and it’s history to meaningfully debunk.

My concern with this is that it looks as though it’s changing public perception of modern science as this fundamentally baseless erroneous institution no matter how much evidence it has to support it. I’ve looked up more debates of this subject featuring Jimbob and the comments are either almost unanimously in agreement with Jimbob no matter if it’s on his channel or someone else or those who disagree in the comments do not meaningfully challenge his points with anything other than insults. Right now it’s on just a few corners of the internet but this could evolve into seeing these similar type of these fallacious hyper philosphical arguments against stuff like evolution and climate change in the mainstream by smooth talkers especially with the trajectory the United States is going in now.

What are your thoughts?

How do you think the world would change if we could remove or radically reprogram the limbic system, eliminating evolutionary drives like lust, status-seeking, fear and hunger and replacing them with consciously chosen motivations?