For me it's this one:

In xenosociology class we learned about a planet full of people who believe in anti-induction: if the sun has risen every day in the past, then they think it’s very unlikely that it’d rise again.

As a result, these people are all starving and living in poverty. An Earth xenosociologist visits the planet and studies them assiduously for 6 months. At the end of her stay, she asked to be brought to their greatest scientists and philosophers, and poses the question: “Hey, why are you still using this anti-induction philosophy? You’re living in horrible poverty!” The lead philosopher of science looks at her in pity as if she’s a child, and replies:

“Well, it never worked before…”

Caption: "Hearken, O houses long divided... why neuroscience and philosophy must now learn to get along." A video from content creator Rachel Barr, neuroscientist and author of "How to Make Your Brain Your Best Friend." Source: Facebook.

It looks like the U.S. government is trying to push through a bill supported by many of the publishing firms to limit open access publishing for federally funded research.

Any thoughts on this?? I tend to think it will have a hugely detrimental effect on science, especially the ability of institutions to be able to afford all of the latest published articles.

Cory Doctorow article on bill

There is no such thing as philosophy-free science. You cannot do science without an underlying philosophy. A scientist is also a philosopher, whether they want or not. Science alone doesn’t tell us anything; for example, physics does not say that reality is physical — that’s the job of metaphysics! The reason is that science is based on philosophical (metaphysical, epistemological and ethical) assumptions that science itself cannot prove. It presupposes the existence of a natural, orderly and consistent world independent from our minds that can be known through sensory experience, observation and evidence. Thus, modern science constitutes a school of thought in its own right, much like Platonism. In this sense, science still is “natural philosophy"; it is an applied form of philosophy, based on observation and experimentation.

It is therefore clear that science and philosophy have never really been separate. The only separation between them is institutional and administrative. But what do you think has caused this separation? What sociological and historical forces best explain why institutions split scientific practice off from philosophy?

See here.

"If you publish a paper on DNA, you are required, by all the good biological journals, to submit the data that has informed your research—the idea being that people will replicate it, check it, verify it. So this is something that needs to be done for journalism as well. There is an immediate power imbalance, in that readers are unable to verify what they are being told, and that leads to abuse.” Because Assange publishes his source material, he believes that WikiLeaks is free to offer its analysis, no matter how speculative.

Since when have scientific journals required the publishing of raw data? Is this usual practice in other sciences? If it isn't, why shouldn't it be?

Edit: To the guy who figured out my password, hey congrats. Thanks for not changing it. My password is now not stanley but it will be stanley again after this thread has petered out.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02342-y

Interested to see opinions

I.

I've been thinking about the common image of The Scientist: they are Einstein-writ-large, self-critical, self-effacing, brilliant, willing to listen to contrary views, etc. You'll hear that from most scientists today, and I'll take them at their word: many scientists are, or at least think they are, paragons of virtue. Our first kind of scientist is then the self-critical scientist: they've thought of -- and addressed -- all the objections long before they've decided to publish, refined their ideas over time, etc.

From here, the collective actions of The Scientists produce a self-critical community of capital-'s'-Science: the self-critical whole is the sum of its self-critical parts. This is close to what Popper had in mind, and sadly, I don't think it exists.

II.

Of course, there's been a more recent depiction of The Scientist as aggressive, dogmatic, indifferent to contrary views, that came out of Kuhn's work in the 60's. This is our second kind of scientist: the dogmatic scientist: they've come up with a brilliant idea, but will never change.

This too leads to a community of dogmatists, where change can occur only when the Old Guard dies. But what if a self-critical community can be an emergent property from a collection of dogmatic scientists?

I don't know if that's possible. In fact, it looks to be by definition impossible: even if all the evidence should indicate otherwise, no dogmatic scientist will stop working on his pet theory. Science, then, would mirror the Christian church's long history of schisms; scientific 'progress' would be little more than competing fads; any test of a theory would be irrelevant. Or, instead of constant schisms, there might be a hegemonic authority, where everyone tows the party line. Either option would be unwelcome.

III.

However, if a handful of even the mostly remotely non-dogmatic scientists continue to publish, there would be progress: they would treat hard-hitting criticism qua criticism, and will eventually adjust their views, etc. There's no need for self-criticism: this third kind of scientist requires only doubt. Our third kind of scientist, then, is the doubting scientist: even if they don't take the time to critically evaluate their own theories, they're willing to listen (somewhat) to others.

There's only so many criticisms people can take before they acknowledge that they've made a mistake. Luckily, scientists are quite happy to criticize their comrades. And of course, scientists are like the rest of us: most of them understand that they make mistakes. Rather than being self-critical or dogmatic, scientists need only doubt. The collective actions of a doubting community produces a self-critical whole.