445. How and When To Think Like a Scientist with Saul Perlmutter, John Campbell, and Robert MacCoun

unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc

In a world challenged by the politicization of data, contradicting evidence, and an onslaught of information, could the key to more effective and informed decision-making be as simple as, thinking like a scientist?

Professor of physics Saul Perlmutter, professor of philosophy John Campbell, and professor of psychology and law Robert MacCoun combine their interdisciplinary minds in the book, Third Millennium Thinking: Creating Sense in a World of Nonsense. The book explores the essence of scientific thinking and how it can be applied to practical societal issues.

Saul, John, and Robert join Greg to chat about the genesis of “third millenium thinking,” the role of values in scientific judgment, and the importance of teaching probabilistic thinking and experimentation.

*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*

Episode Quotes:

Why is it so hard to just walk the Humean line and to be very explicit about sorting out these differences?

09:03: [John Campbell] The message of the book is: keep the Humean line as far as we can, separate the facts and values. Scientists, we all know, have a lot to tell us about the facts, but we, the people, are the ones who tell you about the values. And then, I think, that has to be anyone's first brush, sort of partitioning off the boundaries of science, to keep that Humean line. But then it does get complicated when you think about things like mental illnesses and so on, where you're asking not just, Is this condition that a person had? Is this a real thing? But you're also asking, Is this a bad thing? Is it a bad thing for a person to be like that? So with autism, is that just neurodiversity that is not really within the sphere of medical treatment at all? There are boundaries there as to where science is authoritative and where the people have a voice. And this kind of issue clearly has to be a debate, it seems to me. It's not something for professionals only.

To what extent must we trust the processes within the expert community?

37:04: [Saul Perlmutter] I think that there's a difference between really understanding a field enough that you don't need the expert and having some understanding of how science works so you can recognize which experts you are more likely to trust.

They myth of lone genius

47:26: [Robert MacCoun] This mythology of the lone genius, I think, is very much the antithesis of third-millennium thinking, this notion that it's because I'm brilliant that you should listen to me. And that's really not where we think the authority of science comes from. It's not from the IQ of the scientist. It's from the procedures—the hoops you have to jump through to make your ideas work. And it's those procedures that give you credibility, not just brilliance.

If you hold to the Humean line, why would your value judgments about what's good or bad for society impact your causal arguments?

32:25: [Robert MacCoun] The role of standards of proof when you're dealing with probabilistic evidence, you need to weigh two kinds of errors: false positive errors of claiming a hypothesis is true when it's not, and false negative errors of saying the hypothesis is wrong when in fact it's true. That is not a scientific matter. That is a matter of values. We can't avoid it. In dealing with uncertainty, we have to impose some sort of standard of proof. And so, under the Humean model, you take values very seriously. I don't think we would argue that values are simply outside the domain of science.

Show Links:

Recommended Resources:

• David Hume
• Neil deGrasse Tyson
• Supreme Court overturns Chevron
• Article: Supreme Court strikes down Chevron, curtailing power of federal agencies

Guest Profile:

• Saul Perlmutter’s Profile at UC Berkeley
• John Campbell’s Profile at UC Berkeley
• Robert MacCoun’s Profile at Stanford University

Their Work:

• Third Millennium Thinking: Creating Sense in a World of Nonsense