E-Letter responses to:

essays: David Miller Being an Absolute Skeptic Science 1999; 284: 1625-1626 [Summary] [Full text]

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The Sky Is Not Falling, Just Sagging

Rogi Riverstone   (25 September 1999)

Truth, justification and the philosopher's way

Walter Funk   (12 August 1999)

The Sky Is Not Falling, Just Sagging 25 September 1999
Rogi Riverstone, writer affiliated with strays, underdogs, the misunderstood and the resourceful Respond to this E-Letter: Re: The Sky Is Not Falling, Just Sagging	You are living in a scientific community. I'm out here in the working-class world, where the "Jerry Springer Show" informs human communications. I need to remind you that, where you are from, science is the preferred method of investigating reality. Where I live, people actually think "The Blair Witch Project" actually happened. My class of people goes to telephone psychics for advice. In "Cosmos" (forgive that I can't underline in email), Dr. Sagan said of the burning of the library of Alexandria, "When the mobs came, there was no one there to stop them." Well, I'm trying, in my little way, to prevent a repeat. NEVER presume that we understand, respect or trust scientists. We don't make the distinctions about who is responsible. The fact that we have reneged our responsibility to be an informed and participatory democracy does not deminish our willingness to blame scientists for acid rain, nuclear waste, wierd cancers, etc. We will blame you rather than our own apathy for the problems technological "advancements" have caused. The fact that most of your funding is from military r & d doesn't make us any more comfortable. Come down here, in the streets, where everybody has pagers and doesn't understand how/why they work. See how pathetically ignorant we really are. Then, stand on a bus bench and explain to us why science is important to us and why we need to--and can--understand it. By the way, in searching online for science news, I was appalled to discover that NONE of the major news organizations I was surfing had Science departments. They had "Technology" departments, to cover silicon valley and its affects on the stock market. But just regular old news about science? Where is it? No harm, no foul. You are doing what you were trained to do. But if we don't--all of us, working slobs and ivory tower types--start thinking outside the box pretty quick, I fear torches and clam shells and invocations to jealous dieties will be necessary.
Truth, justification and the philosopher's way 12 August 1999
Walter Funk Respond to this E-Letter: Re: Truth, justification and the philosopher's way	I can't help but notice the inevitable tribalism that frames most philosopher’s/sociologist's arguments regarding this topic. Opinions are presented in such a manner to suggest adherence to a structured religion (skepticism, relativism) and as such, it seems little surprise that these exercises fail to tweak the response or ire of scientists, as I'm quite sure they are intended. Generally speaking, the less hard data or experimentally verified content to an opinion, the more emotional and vitriolic the argument, while good science tends to have the opposite effect; it silences its critics. The liberal sprinkling throughout the article of terms such as "correct" "truth" and "justification" are just the sort of absolutes that scientists have great difficulty in applying to their work. In the converse, the knowledge acquired through science is incorrect, in that current descriptions will inevitably give way to improved versions, untrue, in that there are limits to the accuracy of measurements, and inexorably unjustifiable, in that information has no moral content. If in the end, this entire debate is simply a plea to keep scientists humble and accept the limits of their methods, it seems to me that this notion often occurs early on for practitioners of the method.