Ask HN: When Is Science About Power?
In the modern world, there’s a sense that there’s only one way to evaluate your perspective on the world - and that’s application of an empirical scientific method. Can you show it through a double blind controlled study? No? Well then you might be a pseudoscientific crank!
But then, over time, the narrative around the idea changes. Suddenly, there are articles about it in big newspapers and magazines. People are entertaining the perspective you’ve held all along! In some cases, the paradigm shift completely, and life continues on with the very idea that was dismissed as “unscientific” now becoming a well-accepeted - perhaps even beloved - addition to the canon of human understanding.
We were curious to understand how the pejorative language is used by some members of the scientific community to muddy the waters, especially as measurement and explanation became intertwined and then hopelessly confused during the technological revolution of the last century. Is there a place for such language in discourse about how we know the world, and if there is, where does the line lie?