>The boy who cried 'Positivism!'
Why is the American pop-sci scene riddle with pseudo-intellectuals? Is it he fault of the american education system?
>>855904
Because you're the true intellectual, right
>>855904
Celebrity culture
>>855932
I'm by no means a pseudo-intellectual. My novel is nearing completion and the three chapters I sent out to prospective agents were received with great enthusiasm. After a brief contest between three competing agents I signed with one who immediately found a large publishers to sign my book, despite my informing him that I still have a few chapters to go. As you can imagine this has made my mommy very proud indeed, and any anxiety she might have otherwise experienced for allowing her little cherub to live with her for so long as been relieved and her decision vindicated. It's very entertaining indeed to see so many people on this board discussing their literary ambitions while simultaneously defending the demands made on us all by a corrupt and callous economic system. Having chosen to opt out of such a dystopian existence, my work has benefited from the amount of time I have been able to spend researching, writing and editing what will no-doubt be among next year's most recommended literary achievements. And what's more I have achieved this all at (what will be described as) the "tender age" of 24. I see no reason to sacrifice my existence for the sake of those who see only monetary value and the opportunity for personal gain in this world.
>>855904
>bill nye
>psuedo intellectual
They have personality or had a Disney educational show with an infamous theme song that everyone watched in school.
>>856006
>I'm by no means a pseudo-intellectual. My novel is nearing completion and the three chapters I sent out to prospective agents were received with great enthusiasm. After a brief contest between three competing agents I signed with one who immediately found a large publishers to sign my book, despite my informing him that I still have a few chapters to go. As you can imagine this has made my mommy very proud indeed, and any anxiety she might have otherwise experienced for allowing her little cherub to live with her for so long as been relieved and her decision vindicated. It's very entertaining indeed to see so many people on this board discussing their literary ambitions while simultaneously defending the demands made on us all by a corrupt and callous economic system. Having chosen to opt out of such a dystopian existence, my work has benefited from the amount of time I have been able to spend researching, writing and editing what will no-doubt be among next year's most recommended literary achievements. And what's more I have achieved this all at (what will be described as) the "tender age" of 24. I see no reason to sacrifice my existence for the sake of those who see only monetary value and the opportunity for personal gain in this world.
>>856135
Y'know, if he's right, you're an idiot
>>855904
Mass education. Also scientism.
Leads people in STEM to think they're hot shit, without having a foundation in thought to understand themselves.
>>855904
pseudo intellectual is a meaningless pejorative that people use when they don't actually want to address what the person is saying, it's almost as bad as saying someone is pretentious
>>856157
I'm not objecting, though I do think he wrote it in jest. I only made my post since his read as pure copypasta.
>>856174
>since his read as pure copypasta
Because that's what it is.
>>856199
I'm afraid it isn't pasta. I realize that any posts including over 140 characters are treated with suspicion or instant dismissal in the new, twitterized 4chan but I assure you that each word of that post has its source in objective truth.
Because having a bunch of kids, taught from childhood that we are all automatons and that all emotions are simply chemicals in the brain, leads to a generation that won't take the time to really think about society, government, history, etc. and will instead rely on MSM to do their thinking for them.
Look back into the times when science and the humanities were taught in unison. We saw the likes of Aristotle, Descartes, Da Vinci, etc. This period of time led to the greatest time of change in human history: the Enlightenment.
In a nutshell, removing a sense of averseness between science and the humanities yielded some of the greatest thinkers throughout history. However, these thinkers inspired many and thus caused great changes.This is dangerous to the current status quo, the existence of which relies upon people not knowing history and not being able to think for themselves.
Alas, catchy TV intros and 'le science rocks' are the death throes of the greatest achievements of the human mind.
>>856246
>catchy TV intros
Why do you hate anime, anon?
>>856246
>leads to a generation that won't take the time to really think about society, government, history, etc
Why would you assume it's due to 'muh positivism bogeyman' and not just normies being normies?
>>856253
Positivism is simply a controlled-opposition for normies, in a way. It subtly coerces the beginnings of free-thought into a state of control. This control is mandated by popular scientists, who are seen as unquestionable gods.
"Are you autistic and can't find a place in society? Did your parents make you go to church every sunday? Fucking science bro!" t. black science guy
If philosophy majors are so jelly, why don't they just go back to college and get science degrees? Oh wait, science was "too hard" the first time and still is.
>>856036
Bill Nye the Science Guy was a PBS show
>>856246
>H2O
>>856246
>Thinking the well defined period of the Enlightenment included Greek Philosophers and Renaissance Inventors many centuries prior to the spot
>Thinking that Humanities is more important than it actually is
>Trying this hard to find worth in his Philosophy Degree
>>856386
Nigger I said those Greek philosophers were what led to the Enlightenment happening
>implying I don't have an economics degree
>>856246
>>856386
Forgot one---
>Thinking the Enlightenment was the greatest period of change in the Anthrocene
>Thinking the greatest period of human change isn't the present and the past hundred years
Fucking Humanitards, man.
>>856287
It's a bad thing that society is evolving to move in to a period of technological change where science is revered? Or are you one of those, "Lets stick to the Old Ways of our country. Seventy years ago in the fifties!" types of idiots?
>>856397
Saying they led to the Enlightenment is like saying that Alexander the Great led to World War 1, or that Napoleon led to me waking up today driving a red car.
>>856205
Nope, it's clearly pasta
Welcome to 4chan, you'll never get out
>>856405
>Responding to pasta about a post not being pasta
This board is getting too meta for me
>>855904
In this case, a guy who barely has a single bachelors in engineering, got a job on a kids show on PBS, where he played an entertaining character who made a good "nerd" face for kid's science.
...and that would have been fine, if he had stopped there, but he's using that fame to make a name for himself among those same children, whom he once helped teach science, now that they've grown up.
(All his other degrees are honorary and the direct result of his fame.)
It's less the American Education system's fault (not that it's helping), and more Hollywood's for putting fiction before fact. I suppose you can't entirely blame them, given that's basically Hollywood's job description, but there's such rampant anti-intellectualism in America as it is, it doesn't help when entirely unqualified individuals, with the equivalent of a tech school degrees, become official spokesmen for the entire genre. ...and then go onto say entirely retarded shit from a position of authority.
>>856400
The past hundred years' changes are a direct result of the Enlightenment.
I have no problem with science and technology. What I do have a problem with is how all other fields of thought are mindlessly swept away because DUDE SCIENCE LMAO. I also have a problem with scientists being gods-among-men who are unquestionable. Both are completely undoing the progress made in the Enlightenment.
>>856404
Almost all of the Enlightenment philosophers had, at the very least, some inspiration from classical Greek thinkers.
>>856489
Just as World War One could be attributed to the culture of war and glory associated with it that was encouraged by Alexander. And the other fields of thought do not allow for computers to be run faster, bridges to be built safer, or for space travel to be more economical.
Also, you seem to point to the Enlightenment is a single point in time responsible for all modern thought and concept of reality. I think you're overestimating it's importance. It pushed away from the Great Awakening's stagnation of secular thought, yet it is not as relevant of a time period as you make it out to be. At least not in the way I see it.
>>856496
Just like the generals in WW1 were inspired by Alexander. So Alexander caused WW1.
>tfw we are the coffee houses of the 21st century, where edgy intellectuals gather to discuss history, philosophy, and ethics, after reading a few books and declaring self-expertise.
>>856578
Holy shit you're right
>>856305
It was produced by Disney.
>intellectual
>scientifically illiterate
pick one
>>856548
>Just as World War One could be attributed to the culture of war and glory associated with it that was encouraged by Alexander
Except this "culture of war and glory", much like today's positivism, overrode and took over other schools of thought. Philosophy? Shit unless it's against the Central Powers. Industry? Shit unless it's mass producing rifles. Chemistry? Shit unless it's making chemical weapons.
>And the other fields of thought do not allow for computers to be run faster, bridges to be built safer, or for space travel to be more economical.
1. You assigning value to all of these is a philosophical argument. If not for philosophy, people would not care for the safety of others. Also, true economic thought was developed by Enlightenment thinkers.
2. What of the people who don't want to spend their lives in front of a computer screen? What of the people who see more in life besides technology? What of those who believe spiritual/mental well-being triumphs all the things you listed above?
>Also, you seem to point to the Enlightenment is a single point in time responsible for all modern thought and concept of reality. I think you're overestimating it's importance. It pushed away from the Great Awakening's stagnation of secular thought, yet it is not as relevant of a time period as you make it out to be. At least not in the way I see it.
Do you enjoy being able to have your own religion, not living under a monarchy, and being able to say almost whatever you want without legal consequences?
Positivists brush aside philosophy and history, yet don't realize how much it's done for them.
>>856489
>I also have a problem with scientists being gods-among-men who are unquestionable.
If any of the other fields of thought had made the progress science had, theY would likely be as depended-upon in modern times.
The reason is simple, it's pseudo-intellectuals that consume and indulge in pop-sci not actual scientists. As a result the biggest figureheads of the scene are just the average of the people that actually take pop-sci seriously.
>>856630
>If any of the other fields of thought had made the progress science had
Do you enjoy living under a state that is devoid of monarchy, allows you to own most of your own wealth, and probably allows for free speech and human rights? Do you enjoy the fact that most people think twice about doing you wrong and/or killing you? Do you enjoy the freedom of ideas and the spread thereof?
Thank the "other fields" for that.
>>856006
wasn't this from that old /lit/ tripfag?
scientists feed the human hedonism, nothing else.
>>856809
Here it is. The most retarded comment on the thread
>>856618
>Do you enjoy being able to have your own religion, not living under a monarchy, and being able to say almost whatever you want without legal consequences?
you do know that the fantasy of the free thinker, that any liberal and libertarian love, is exactly a castration in order to render impotent the pleb ?
this faith in the human liberty passing through the expression, the free speech is what makes people take seriously their speculations, their thought experiments, and reinforce the faith in the fantasy of the *the normative reason* and the identification of your self with what you think.
the direct consequence is that people are now butthurt when you tell them that you do not think like them.
liberals and libertarians want people to be powerless.
>>855904
The American pop-sci scene is riddled with pseudo-intellectuals BECAUSE it's a POPULAR science scene.
I'm not a huge Bill Nye fan, and I feel the same about Neil deGrasse Tyson, though I basically agree with the general conclusions they proffer. Yet they tend to oversimplify certain cultural debates.
Either way, they have to simplify things because they're reaching for a large audience. And hey, if what they're trying to do is get people interested, I don't really see the problem; the issue for me is that too many people think that they can listen to these guys and that they're (the people listening) are therefore nerdy scientists who "get" it, and who "fucking love science." And that seems to be the fault of the people who say that sort of shit rather than the pop-sci folks--hell, they're just trying to bring oftentimes hugely complicated scientific theories down to the level of people who frequently don't have the time to immerse themselves in the details of the unpopularized version of the science.
Anyway, I should ask: Is it different anywhere else other than America with science popularizers? Brian Cox (British) seems pretty cool, but he too sometimes says some needlessly sounding mystical shit to get people interested. I know there are tons of others, so I'm wondering who else you might have in mind.
(Though, as for the second question, I bet that the state of the American education system does deserve some blame).
even scientists admit, after post-positivism, that they work to ease the life of the humanity.
What I am saying is that choosing to live because you are scared of being in discomfort is pathetic, which makes you butthurt.
>>856901
t. Canada
>>856400
>It's a bad thing that society is evolving to move in to a period of technological change where science is revered? Or are you one of those, "Lets stick to the Old Ways of our country. Seventy years ago in the fifties!" types of idiots?
Please tell us you're being ironic...
>>856826
>all that mental gymnastics
Free thinkers usually want people to wield their own power.
so far, thanks to science, we have:
-no perfect consensus on anything, not even in pure math [which logic to choose, what field is more important]
-the research is geared towards what scientist like and avoids what scientist dislike [say if you want to do research on perpetual movement, you cannot]
-science is hardly communicable [most people do not care, the few people who care cannot into science, and then the few who remain always fight on what model is right and what model is wrong]
-scientist and general population rely on faith towards other scientists who claim that such or such part of such or such model is ''verified'' in their laboratory
-then scientists say ''if we can claim that it hold a few times in our laboratory, then it hold everywhere, every time]
-there is no consensus on how to rank models/theories
which means that there is no consensus on what is true [in positing that science gives what is true]
-plenty of scientists say that predictions matter, but scientists cannot say why why predictions matter.
[and predictions are always flawed by their proper essence: to stem from an inductive process over initial abstractions[concepts] which are generalized through space and time]
they say that this question is for ''philosophers'' [which they despise, because philosophy does not give ''computers, cars, more pleasures, less pains''.
why do scientists get up in the morning ? nobody knows
why must we finance their activities ? nobody knows
yet scientists do not hesitate to ask for money again and again.
to be more precise, there is nothing beyond the ''striving of the scientist for more and more fine predictions''.
-you ask a scientist why predictions matter, he will not answer you.
-you ask a scientist why finer predictions matter, he will say as you said: because it has better applications than the applications than we have today.
>>856852
Neil deGrasse Tyson at least has a doctorate and a smattering of additional, non-honorary, degrees, has written some papers and some books, and generally admits when he's talking about shit outside of his field.
Bill Nye, on the other hand, doesn't even have sufficient education to teach science at an elementary school, ye he goes Q&A tours like he's the end all authority on everything science, simply because he was on a children's television show for a few years.
This all might have something to do with the fact that Tyson was already well to do as a result of working in his field before he was well known, while Nye's income more or less depends on his ability as a has-been children's television actor.
-you ask why having (better) applications than we have today matters, he either does not reply, or replies ''because easing the life of the humans matters''.
-and when you ask why ''easing the life of the humans matters'', there is no answer again.
the conclusion is that:
-science/technology has always been easing in our life, and conflating this explicit purpose with ''giving us knowledge in accessing truths about the objective reality'' and other realist-rationalist fantasies to legitimate the development of this field [pure hedonism having always bad press] have clearly failed.
at best, the rationalist falls back, from his faith in the concept of objectivity, on the faith in the concept of ''inter-subjectivity'' which is roughly the faith in the concept of ''objective criterion to rank personal choices, once that a person wishes to solve some problem''
-even without applications, pure predictions are nothing but a concept and having faith in it shows how much the humanity clings to the abstraction of certainty in a desperate attempt to refuse the contingency of events [and it is a choice, in the first place, to think in such terms of contingency/necessity of life/events].
=> thanks scientists for making humanity better hedonists.
>>856300
Specialization, there simply isn't enough time to study in both fields and then be taken seriously.
For instance take David Berlinski,
>mathematician
>physicist
>philosopher
Remarkably eloquent speaker, logical and funny as well.
The man gives Darwinists quite the go-around and even gave Hitchens a run for his money, however in doing so he rouses the ire of that small cult of people known as "atheists" self proclaimed obviously.
Though Berlinski himself is a non-believer as well as an intellectual, a scientist, author of both philosophical and mathematical books, and an excellent speaker he is stil blacklisted for doubting, not denying, merely asking for sufficient evidence of mechanism and model of evolutionary theory (he isn't saying things do not change, he is asking how they change and demanding non-retro-active evidence aka a predictive model or pattern).
And he says that most intellectuals who think atheism is the default stance are full of it because it's an unappealing idea, usually done arbitrarily, and the their belief in such is wafer thin.
>>856486
IDK, when you want to send someone to represent science in an creationist debate, one would think one might want to send someone with a doctorate, in maybe, I dunno, molecular biology, or some such, rather than someone with the equivalent of a tech school degree in engineering.
>>856946
NTG, but, on the other hand, most philosophers who people do take seriously do have doctorates in other fields.
The days of the dedicated philosopher are kind of a bygone era. The only way to make any money in the field is to teach it - and even then, you still need an additional degree in education.
>>856935
Yeah, I agree. Tyson I know knows his shit, and that he's made serious contributions to the field. He in particular I think doesn't deserve some of the hate he gets.
My biggest problem with Tyson is that he was invited to give a talk at a university for some science conference. Tons of other big names were invited. And Tyson was charging a boat load of money--thousands of dollars--to attend. The conference was in NYC--where he lives--so travel expenses aren't a problem. None of the other speakers were getting that kind of money. I know he's a big deal, and I think in some venues it makes sense to want to get paid. But in this context it did put a different spin on his apparent "love" of educating people about science.
That said, to be clear, I don't think he's a fraud, nor do I think he's a worthless because he charges an exorbitant speaking fee when it seems ridiculous. But hearing that did knock him down a few pegs in my book.
I also don't dislike Nye--I think his excitement is genuine, and he's done a good deal to help stoke people's intellectual curiosity. He sometimes says stupid shit on TV, and occasionally says stuff just to get people in a tizzy, and that pisses me off.
>>856947
He still one the debate, at least if your going by which guy had the sounder argument rather than which had the best slide show
>>855904
>Why is the American pop-sci scene riddle with pseudo-intellectuals?
Because it isn't filled with actual intellectuals. And no, phil majors don't count. Getting the voting population to say "science is cool and mysterious!" isn't as good as getting them to say "science is something I have a methodological understanding of!" but it's a hell of a lot better than letting them sit in trailers and respond to politicians who treat snowballs as evidence.
If you're a phil major who wants there to be more people who understand both STEM and phil, don't tell STEM majors to go learn phil; learn stem yourself and be the example. Reading the higgs-boson particle wikipedia page doesn't cut it.
Everyone here preaching about "everything philosophy has done throughout history" is fucking retarded. That's no different from saying "WE WUZ KANGS". People before you were; you were not. You can work as a lab intern and make more real world contribution nowadays than most phil majors do. Ask a phil major how they've contributed to society;
>I wrote some definitions then proved they don't conflict with eachother at least, just in case anyone wanted a spare paradigm!
>I re-organized some ideas that've already been read over millions of times because I'm just venting my OCD through writing!
>I once again vainly failed to close the fact-value gap because I entered this field in search of objective morality!
And for good measure:
>Can't know nuffin!
>>856961
Most of Tyson's speaking fees become charity for Doctors Without Borders. Again, unlike Nye, he was already fairly well to do before he became famous, being worth well over eight figures when he joined Hayden Planetarium staff, and helped fund the 200 million dollar project, back in the early 90's.
Not that it isn't worth it for gems like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiiC0v9tVMg
(Though, in that case, the entire conference was for charity.)
>>855904
>>856983
Thanks for this, I didn't know the money went to Doctors Without Borders--that makes me feel that his speaking fee is a little less scummy.
As for OP's original question about the dearth of American intellectuals in the pop-sci scene (or the dearth of intellectuals in the American pop-sci scene), it did occur to me that Brian Greene is pretty cool and still very actively involved in theoretical physics--teaching classes and advising graduate students, at least (and for all I know still publishing in the relevant field-specific journals). I have a very shallow understanding of the fields of physics--theoretical, astrophysics, etc.--and most of what I know comes from reading things for a popular audience that are published by the likes Greene, Hawking, et al., or occasionally watching some special on TV. That said, Greene strikes me as legit, and friends of mine who work in physics have said good things about him in particular (though I find some of his analogies and metaphors a little strange and hard to follow).
However, providing the example of Brian Greene isn't intended to demonstrate that the pop-sci scene isn't still filled with pseudo-intellectuals--Brian Greene, and figures like him, might still be the exception.
> Is it he fault of the american education system?
Hardly. Look at pop-sci scene of other countries and compare. I bet here would be same pseudo intellectuals if not straight pseudo scientists.
>>856981
The whole point of philosophy is that it is important for its own sake. It isn't to be judged on being a "contribution to society" or not. Your caricatures show your ignorance as well. Read any SEP article on any philosophical topic and you will find that there is interesting stuff going on in the field.
>>856981
I basically agree with the thrust of this point--people who work in the philosophy of science generally need to do a lot more getting their hands dirty, learning some of the difficult stuff in science.
Still, people who work in the history of science (and some in the philosophy of science) can help to provide large scale pictures of how scientific insights have been developed, how they shaped other disciplines, and how they are related to other domains of knowledge.
I don't know what to say about the debates regarding philosophy and some of the weird quantum stuff. But I have heard it argued (and it seems plausible to me) that in the first half of the twentieth century, there was a pretty philosophical approach (by philosophical, I mean to point to the discipline as it was and is in academia, NOT philosophical in some pseudo-religious mystical bullshit way) to certain scientific problems; this approach was eschewed in the postwar period by scientists like Feynman. Feynman's one of my favorites, so I don't mean this as knock against Feynman, just that the field changed in such a way that previous approaches became obsolete. I have read--from SOME scientists working in theoretical physics, QM, and the like--that a more philosophical approach (whatever that means) might help once again. Though what a few scientists have to say about this I don't know.
As for the "contribution" that people, like philosophers, make to society--I think that's a misguided path to go down. I suppose it depends on what's meant by contribution, but there are plenty of things in science, philosophy, art, blah blah blah that don't make a straightforward contribution but nevertheless seem to deepen our understanding of the world, or help to shape our perspective or attitude towards it. Of course, that might be understood as a contribution, in which case what I've misunderstood the use of the term intended here.
Ok, these threads always make me ask this: where exactly are the hordes of people claiming philosophy is useless? Even the Bill Nye video that seems to get 4chan's panties in such a twist said it's both important, and its questions are interesting (just unanswerable beyond basic common sense for some of them). I'm beginning to think these threads are mostly just a screen for asshurt theists, because theology is about the only field of philosophy that seems to be losing ground.
>>857262
I'd never really thought of this, but while many don't explicitly toss the discipline of philosophy out the window, many say things that amount to as much. Neil deGrasse Tyson basically says as much--there's an interview where, if I recall, he says philosophy is "dangerous stuff" because it leads people to ask fruitless, pointless questions that seem to be deep. He might implicitly be making a distinction here between forms of philosophy that aren't useless, and those that are, but it doesn't seem so to me. More realistically he just seems to fundamentally misunderstand what philosophy is (as a lot of people do--it's unfortunate that the philosophy section of many bookstores is right alongside the fucking "New Age" bullshit section).
Aside from that, philosophy--along with plenty of other disciplines in the Humanities--is oftentimes viewed skeptically by people with money, which has effects on how the Humanities are funded. Don't get me wrong--the people who say dumbass things like "Well phil0s0ph0rs and english majors don't build bridges or help make walmarts lar-dee-darrrr" are frequently the same dumbasses who say things like, "We shoouldn't bee funding things the james webb space telescope or the LHC or sending stupid rovers to marrs." They're often people who lack imagination and any sort of probing curiosity about the world. That said, there are plenty of people in the sciences--great people for whom I have huge respect--who still attack the Humanities on the grounds of its "useslessness" (Tyson is just one example). Generally these arguments seem weak to me.
But hey, I spent my life studying this useless sort of shit, so I'll admit I've got a horse in this race.
>>855904
>wahh positivism
Is it really to much to ask for you to substantiate your claims?
Sorry, but muh feels and muh bible aren't acceptable arguments in 2016.
>>857282
> muh feels and muh bible aren't acceptable arguments in 2016
Neither is positivism. It is hundreds years aged already and was under heavy critic from such philosophers of science like Popper.
>>856936
>=>
No
>>857282
>Uses the current year as an argument
>>855904
Positivism basically killed itself with the theory of relativity. It forced the standard model to change.
Science uses axioms to function. And axioms can be debunked if another major breakthrough happens.
Please tell me what notion of positivism you use when you're talking about it. From my experience people mean one two things.
1) Logical positivism
2 ) Scientism. And by scientism I mean the idea that the natural-scientific method is the only valid scientific method and that all kind of studies can be conducted trough the natural-scientific method.
>>857300
Popper didn't claim that all "positivism" is invalid.
The scientific method is an example of a process which is positivist.
Several of Popper's ideas have been used to improve scientific practice, like falsifiability. Now the scientific method is stronger than it was before.
>>858495
>hurr the body of scientific knowledge changed when new evidence arose therefore the scientific method is dead
>>856489
Enlightement was literally the most destructive movement in our history, laying foundation to bullshit ideologies like communism, socialism, democracy, nationalism and fascism.
>>857190
>The whole point of philosophy is that it is important for its own sake.
By what standard?
> It isn't to be judged on being a "contribution to society" or not.
Says who?
>there is interesting stuff going on in the field.
At best there's interesting speculation going on with respect to the findings of other fields.
>>857200
I'm not saying philosophy as a concept makes no contribution, but that by comparison, a phil major needs to know more STEM to contribute than a STEM major needs to know phil, and for that reason phil majors may as well take up STEM themselves rather than claim scientists need to go sit through a phil class. I understand practical utility isn't necessarily the best reason to value something, but if science has all the toys, what means has phil of swaying them anyway? Phil majors need to go take those toys for themselves if they want sci/phil uberhumans to exist. If scientists thought philosophy was "worth studying for it's own sake" they would have studied philosophy.
>>859062
By it's own standard-. It is self sufficient. If your discipline is only valuable for the sake of something else then it has no value really, since all of its value actually belongs to something else. Ultimately you need things that are sufficiently valuable on their own without relating to other things or else there would be nothing to make those subordinately valuable things valuable. But all it means to be valuable is that someone values it. Philosophers value Philosophy for its own sake- we don't need anything more than that because you need primitively valuable things to have any values at all. It would be degraded if it was based around vague notions of "contributing to society". If someone asks what Philosophy is good for- the correct answer is "nothing", I would claim that rather than question should be " how is x good for philosophy?".
>At best there's interesting speculation going on with respect to the findings of other fields.
Metaphysics is the best part of philosophy- since it gets at the fundamentals of reality and logical possibility without appeal to other disciplines- acting as the ground that they all stand on ontologically. The problem of universals for example gets at the fundamentals of how we can actually posit general types- Science can't answer this because they already use general types as a given in their analysis- Science does'nt study particulars, but generals. Science actually presumes a kind of realism about universals, it takes a philosopher to justify this realism though. This is related to science, but not a mere commentary to scientific discoveries, but as something integral to it insofar as it is integral to all of reality. Not finding this interesting simply means you care less about knowing things about reality than the philosopher does.
>>855904
>Is it he fault of the american education system?
The American Ed system has bent over backwards to accommodate females and minorities, and yet, they have repeatedly failed to address the approach they use to teach, as a whole.
Reliance on brick and mortar buildings, 1 instructor per 20+ students, a failure to understand the importance of motivation in teaching, a failure to understand the importance of mentoring in teaching, a failure to incorporate physicality in teaching, and a failure to understand and incorporate the significance of biology in teaching are but a few examples of why our Ed system is such a goat fuck and waste of money.
>daily anti-positivism propaganda thread
>>856489
>I also have a problem with scientists being gods-among-men who are unquestionable
I'll tell you something.
If some science doesn't have practical, engineering application, majority of people BUT academics won't care about it at all. If it has, and the scientific consensus is wrong regarding it, it is quickly questioned and gets checked on what were the shrinks missing. I think that when they've first started using RCD's, some electricians noticed that they turn the power out during short-circuits between phases, which shouldn't happen(it should happen only when wire gets grounded) and guess what, nobody says they're not cutting the circuits during shorts anymore. Magical ultimate unquestionable science men my ass.
Of course you're expecting that every retarded claim somebody pulls out of his ass and doesn't back with any facts will be considered seriously and then surprise, it doesn't work like that.
If we're talking about more abstract sides of it then academics are all the rage about them. They discuss them, try to prove and disprove then, they get mad at each other for holding different views.
Same goes for humanities. Everyday normie doesn't really discuss whether Evola had it all covered up or 100% nostalgic romantic with no brain. They don't analyse Marxism and don't look for underlying philosophies in Victor Hugo's novels. Humanity academics do it. As was back in the 18th, 17th, whatever century. It's just that the ordinary and their records from these periods are very scarce or conveniently ignored - there are journals and other things some people had, sometimes pretty elaborately written and guess what - normal person, like ordinary nobleman or merchant, was more interested whether he'll make lots of money on the interest he's making today, how successful the next hunt will be and how horrible the hangover is after 3 days of drinking, NOT about whether Voltaire is smug cunt and how horrible of a godless faggot this Moiler guy is.
>>856933
>Consensus is bad, it provides for no change. Living in an echo chamber of your own ideas is degenerative.
>Research is geared towards things that have potential. Perpetual motion machines are physically impossible. Although this goes against what I said above, about consensus, if you think that a perpetual motion machine can work, you're either fourteen, or mentally challenged.
>This one doesn't even make sense.
>Scientists retest their own and others' theories, and only until results have been recreated by multiple scientists and organizations is anything typically found to be verifiable. With gravitational waves, the scientists worked for months retesting the equipment and reanalyzing their data, then releasing the data allowing others to analyze it.
>Because if something is able to be recreated and tested in different laboratories and by different people, it's considered verifiable.
>How to rank models and theories? You mean how to assign importance to them? The importance of an idea is left up to the scientists and people who are interested in it. The importance of antibiotic research is of no interest to a theoretical physicist.
>Predictions are important, but scientists can't say why they're important? I think you've just got the wrong idea here. Predictions are inherently important because they provide projected insight in to the future. No one disagrees with their general importance. It is important, for instance, that we can predict some time in the future an asteroid will be on a collision course with Earth, so we can plan to stop it.
>Philosophers are not importance. They are self-entitled intellectuals just regurgitating the same ideas that anyone with half a brain can think up in their spare time. Everyone considers quantum questions about life and the reason for it all, but productive people realize that everyone else thinks just as they do, and that echoing these universally Human Questions does nothing to help society
>cont
>>856933
>>862948
>Why? To enjoy life and do things that interest them, just as anyone else.
>Because their activities actually benefit society as a whole, unlike self-entitled "philosophers"
>Scientific research grants benefits.
>If your point with these superficial questions was to prove that philosophy is important in understanding scientists and their motives, or that scientists are truly useless, you are genuinely retarded.
>What scientist says those things?
>Predictions definitely matter
>More accurate predictions more accurately definitely matter
Seriously, you are the reason why no one respects Philosophy degrees.
>Hawking and Mlodinow, in the chapter of their book called “The Theory of Everything,” quote Albert Einstein: “The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.” In response, Hawking and Mlodinow offer this crashing banality: “The universe is comprehensible because it is governed by scientific laws; that is to say, its behavior can be modeled.” Later, the authors invite us to give ourselves a collective pat on the back: “The fact that we human beings — who are ourselves mere collections of fundamental particles of nature — have been able to come this close to an understanding of the laws governing us and our universe is a great triumph.” Great triumph or no, none of this addresses Einstein’s paradox, because no explanation is offered as to why our universe is “governed by scientific laws.”
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-folly-of-scientism
E. is right indeed. The gap has widened in a century. hawking is just like the dawkins of physics
people think that the foremost questions in science is what is space, time, temperature, quarks and so on. No, the sole crucial and urgent question is why the humanity is able to predict [more or less] through induction , itself formalized via the rules of inferences.
[and also, why the humanity believes that to offer some mechanical model is knowledge about the world]
