Positivism is best for assessing positivist claims.
As a first step, it helps just to ask someone whether they are making a claim in positive way - something that is testable and could be proven right or wrong by logic and evidence - or not. If you ask someone about God, they will sometimes answer, "No, it is a matter of faith, I can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt to the satisfaction of an open-minded skeptic."
If you ask someone about "systemic racism" they will always answer yes, like it's an established scientific fact and objectively true, but they're wrong about that.
So, when someone chooses to insist that they are making a positive claim, it's fair to hold that claim to full positivist standards and insist on strict rigor, the strongest evidence, and the highest burdens of proof to overcome a presumption of the null hypothesis.
Great post. In Its simplified form it’s just the “no bullshit rule.” Of course, in a world where the no “bullshit rule” applies, no one would listen to mainstream media or the politicians. We would all be looked on as individuals living in meritocratic society. We would trust our institutions. But that would be utopia and we’re a long way from there.
Exactly right Arnold. Positivism works great as a heuristic but fails as a method guaranteed to be the best method to get you closer to the truth. Which, ironically, was the opposite of the claim its originators made for it. They saw it as a way to get past heuristics.
I think rigorous thinkers such as ourselves can find ample evidence for or against a link between racial disparities and systemic racism by comparing ourselves with other countries.
As a though, what are the major competing form of philosophy aside from positivism (idealism)? Pragmatism (risk aversion), empiricism (heuristics) and egoism (selfishness) comes to mind. Also how are they tied to class or *wit cultures? Chantrill's American Manifesto might have some pointers on how elites are egoists while the midwits are positivist, with dimwits having various levels of pragmatism and empirticism. Would that mean positivism are less coherent as a faith?
“Racial disparities are caused by systemic racism” is actually a falsifiable statement, isn’t it? Just look at Nigerian-Americans, Indian-Americans, Pakistani-Americans, all of whom have a much higher than median household incomes and educational achievements. Doesn’t that falsify that particular statement?
Logic is closely related to positivism, which in turn is largely akin to empiricism. Ideologues tend to make absolute statements that are unverifiable or irrefutable. They also tend to make series of statements that don't fit together logically. When I engage with ideologues on social media or in conversation, I often can quickly identify the logical fallacies in their claims, which generally paints them into corners and ends the discussion.
P.S. The comments under this discussion are *excellent*! Well done, everyone. (Is that assessment verifiable or merely an assertion?)
Science involves twin ideals of fullness and parsimony -- science aims to explain much with little -- and generally distinguishes causes and effects. Cause and effect can coincide in special cases; notably, in successful intentional behaviors (the intention then explains the outcome), and in processes that feature specific feedback loops from an effect to a cause.
The statement, "racial disparities are caused by systemic racism," would seem to explain much with little. However, it conflates cause (systemic racism) and effect (racial disparities), but does not establish (with evidence) either intentional racism or specific feedback loops. Instead, it ignores a fundamental distinction between 'disparate intent' (cause) and 'disparate impact' (effect). It also ignores *specific mechanisms* whereby endowments, intentions, rules, and institutions have unintended consequences. It treats systemic racism as 'a black box.' By contrast, knowledge of mechanisms can inform discussion of what might or might not work better.
Now, if racial disparities persist despite major efforts 'upstream' to prevent disparities 'downstream', then perhaps it's only human to interpret the bad equilibrium as evidence of a systemic cause, and to defy the systemic cause by acting directly on outcomes to achieve racial parity. But that's not science.
I have a better idea for bootstrapping: Strive always to treat persons as individuals, as much as time and attention allow, most especially upstream.
Better to teach them Bayesianism, I'd say. There's no such thing as evidence that would completely "falsify" a hypothesis, but there is a related principle that follows from Bayes' theorem and can have a similar disciplining effect: if E is evidence for T, not-E is evidence against T.
Bayesianism means combining a prior belief with evidence. So if I have a prior belief that the latest COVID variant will be less deadly (because way back when Bret and Heather said that is the way such viruses tend to evolve) I then adjust that based on evidence. In this context, if someone tells me that there is "no evidence that the new variant is less deadly," I interpret that as meaning that there is not yet enough data to change my prior belief. I am *not* going to infer that the new variant is just as deadly.
In short, a Bayesian is not going to misinterpret absence of evidence.
It does not imply the implicit claim in that statement that substantially the same credence should be given to the latter half as to the former, regardless of other data. Example: if I flip a coin behind a screen, you have zero evidence that it didn't land on edge rather than come up tails or heads, but Bayes' Theorem does not allow you to deduce from this lack of evidence that the former outcome is as likely as the latter two, which is how the statement "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" is often applied rhetorically and which is what, I suspect, you are objecting to.
And given the social nature of knowledge construction (a la Rauch), positivism probably brings greater legibility to the process - empirical data as common currency (or at least a backing for the common currency).
Maybe Bayesian reasoning captures both the positive and non-positive aspects of the process, but I may be oversimplifying there.
Positivism is best for assessing positivist claims.
As a first step, it helps just to ask someone whether they are making a claim in positive way - something that is testable and could be proven right or wrong by logic and evidence - or not. If you ask someone about God, they will sometimes answer, "No, it is a matter of faith, I can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt to the satisfaction of an open-minded skeptic."
If you ask someone about "systemic racism" they will always answer yes, like it's an established scientific fact and objectively true, but they're wrong about that.
So, when someone chooses to insist that they are making a positive claim, it's fair to hold that claim to full positivist standards and insist on strict rigor, the strongest evidence, and the highest burdens of proof to overcome a presumption of the null hypothesis.
Great post. In Its simplified form it’s just the “no bullshit rule.” Of course, in a world where the no “bullshit rule” applies, no one would listen to mainstream media or the politicians. We would all be looked on as individuals living in meritocratic society. We would trust our institutions. But that would be utopia and we’re a long way from there.
Exactly right Arnold. Positivism works great as a heuristic but fails as a method guaranteed to be the best method to get you closer to the truth. Which, ironically, was the opposite of the claim its originators made for it. They saw it as a way to get past heuristics.
I think rigorous thinkers such as ourselves can find ample evidence for or against a link between racial disparities and systemic racism by comparing ourselves with other countries.
As a though, what are the major competing form of philosophy aside from positivism (idealism)? Pragmatism (risk aversion), empiricism (heuristics) and egoism (selfishness) comes to mind. Also how are they tied to class or *wit cultures? Chantrill's American Manifesto might have some pointers on how elites are egoists while the midwits are positivist, with dimwits having various levels of pragmatism and empirticism. Would that mean positivism are less coherent as a faith?
“Racial disparities are caused by systemic racism” is actually a falsifiable statement, isn’t it? Just look at Nigerian-Americans, Indian-Americans, Pakistani-Americans, all of whom have a much higher than median household incomes and educational achievements. Doesn’t that falsify that particular statement?
Logic is closely related to positivism, which in turn is largely akin to empiricism. Ideologues tend to make absolute statements that are unverifiable or irrefutable. They also tend to make series of statements that don't fit together logically. When I engage with ideologues on social media or in conversation, I often can quickly identify the logical fallacies in their claims, which generally paints them into corners and ends the discussion.
P.S. The comments under this discussion are *excellent*! Well done, everyone. (Is that assessment verifiable or merely an assertion?)
Science involves twin ideals of fullness and parsimony -- science aims to explain much with little -- and generally distinguishes causes and effects. Cause and effect can coincide in special cases; notably, in successful intentional behaviors (the intention then explains the outcome), and in processes that feature specific feedback loops from an effect to a cause.
The statement, "racial disparities are caused by systemic racism," would seem to explain much with little. However, it conflates cause (systemic racism) and effect (racial disparities), but does not establish (with evidence) either intentional racism or specific feedback loops. Instead, it ignores a fundamental distinction between 'disparate intent' (cause) and 'disparate impact' (effect). It also ignores *specific mechanisms* whereby endowments, intentions, rules, and institutions have unintended consequences. It treats systemic racism as 'a black box.' By contrast, knowledge of mechanisms can inform discussion of what might or might not work better.
Now, if racial disparities persist despite major efforts 'upstream' to prevent disparities 'downstream', then perhaps it's only human to interpret the bad equilibrium as evidence of a systemic cause, and to defy the systemic cause by acting directly on outcomes to achieve racial parity. But that's not science.
I have a better idea for bootstrapping: Strive always to treat persons as individuals, as much as time and attention allow, most especially upstream.
Better to teach them Bayesianism, I'd say. There's no such thing as evidence that would completely "falsify" a hypothesis, but there is a related principle that follows from Bayes' theorem and can have a similar disciplining effect: if E is evidence for T, not-E is evidence against T.
If Bayes' Theorem implies that absence of evidence is evidence of absence, then Bayes' Theorem is not for me.
Bayesianism means combining a prior belief with evidence. So if I have a prior belief that the latest COVID variant will be less deadly (because way back when Bret and Heather said that is the way such viruses tend to evolve) I then adjust that based on evidence. In this context, if someone tells me that there is "no evidence that the new variant is less deadly," I interpret that as meaning that there is not yet enough data to change my prior belief. I am *not* going to infer that the new variant is just as deadly.
In short, a Bayesian is not going to misinterpret absence of evidence.
It does not imply the implicit claim in that statement that substantially the same credence should be given to the latter half as to the former, regardless of other data. Example: if I flip a coin behind a screen, you have zero evidence that it didn't land on edge rather than come up tails or heads, but Bayes' Theorem does not allow you to deduce from this lack of evidence that the former outcome is as likely as the latter two, which is how the statement "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" is often applied rhetorically and which is what, I suspect, you are objecting to.
And given the social nature of knowledge construction (a la Rauch), positivism probably brings greater legibility to the process - empirical data as common currency (or at least a backing for the common currency).
Maybe Bayesian reasoning captures both the positive and non-positive aspects of the process, but I may be oversimplifying there.