283. Michael Strevens — The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science

The Michael Shermer Show

Michael Shermer

Science, Natural Sciences

4.3 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 25 June 2022

⏱️ 92 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Shermer and Strevens discuss: irrationality and how it drives science • the scientific method • the knowledge machine • irrationality • the replication crisis, what caused it, and what to do about it • verification vs. falsification • the iron rule of explanation • Bayesian reasoning vs. falsification • climate/evolution skeptics • model dependent realism • morality • humanism • theistic arguments for: God, origin of life, morality, consciousness • known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns • Why should we believe Anthony Fauci? • how to evaluate media sources of science.

If is science so powerful why did it take so long — two thousand years after the invention of philosophy and mathematics — for the human race to start using science to learn the secrets of the universe? Philosopher of science Michael Strevens argues that science came about only once thinkers stumbled upon the astonishing idea that scientific breakthroughs could be accomplished by breaking the rules of logical argument. Using a plethora of vivid historical examples, Strevens demonstrates that scientists willfully ignore religion, theoretical beauty, and even philosophy to embrace a constricted code of argument whose very narrowness channels unprecedented energy into empirical observation and experimentation. Strevens calls this scientific code the iron rule of explanation, and reveals the way in which the rule, precisely because it is unreasonably close-minded, overcomes individual prejudices to lead humanity inexorably toward the secrets of nature.

Michael Strevens, a 2017 Guggenheim Fellow, is a professor of philosophy at New York University. He was born in New Zealand and has been writing about philosophy of science for twenty-five years. He lives in New York.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're listening to theurmer Show.
0:24.4	All righty, Michael Strevens, we are live with your new book, The Knowledge Machine, how irrationality created modern science. Thanks for coming on the show.
0:25.9	We love to talk history and philosophy of science with a professional in the field.
0:30.6	And so before we get into all that just let's start with just giving
0:34.7	us some background you know where were you born and raised and how did you get where did you
0:38.6	go to college what were some of your mentors or people that inspired you to go into
0:42.3	philosophy and philosophy of science and
0:45.2	and how you got to where you are now?
0:47.2	Sure, yeah.
0:48.2	Well, I was born in New Zealand and I grew up there and I went to college there. I originally thought of myself as a scientist and
0:56.1	intended to go into science, but somehow I was diverted by personal computers which just erupted onto the scene around the time that I was an undergraduate
1:08.4	or a little bit before and I got carried away and kind of ended up in the computer lab not the physics lab.
1:15.8	And by the time I regained my wit physics had passed me by and I ended up in philosophy but as a
1:30.0	philosopher of science so after a few more years of studying philosophy in New Zealand I
1:34.7	came over here to the US to do my PhD in philosophy and as you say it became a
1:40.3	professional philosopher of science so now I think about science from the sidelines you might say.
1:47.0	Yeah right so I think where I'd like the conversation that ultimately end up would be to talk about why we should trust and believe scientists at all.
1:58.0	As you know, we're in the middle of this kind of crash in trust in traditional institutions, the media in particular
2:06.1	but also authoritarian institutions, not just the church but also science itself.
2:11.3	Why should I believe Anthony Fauching when he's changed his mind
2:14.2	27 times on masks and vaccines and so on what you know I don't know what I don't know
2:19.4	who to believe in here I'm not I don't mean climate deniers or vaccine deniers that are political or ideologues.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Michael Shermer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Michael Shermer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.