Don't Trust the Science

In which I quote Ronald Reagan

We’ve all seen our neighbors’ signs, right?

But, is this good advice, or an admonishment to shut up and accept whatever you’re being told about the science?

Gender ideologists will often claim that the “Science is Settled” regarding the reality of trans identification, and as proof share peer-reviewed articles to support their case. And for most people, not trained in nor practiced in critical thinking, this is the evidence they need to be convinced of the truth that trans people are, in fact, trans. Sharing such articles is a way of closing off arguments without actually engaging if the person who shares does not fully understand what is the content of the articles.

Peer review is held as a gold standard of evidence among skeptics and critical thinkers, but we often gloss over the weaknesses of peer review of single articles. What do reviewers look for in a piece prior to stamping with their imprimatur? They review the literature review, methodology, the statistical analysis, and the conclusions to ensure that the claims that are made by the authors accurately reflect the work they have done. Reviewers do not replicate the experiments. A well-reviewed paper means that the paper was done well, the conclusions match the analysis, that there were no obvious errors, that the paper could be defended adequately, if challenged. The paper then becomes an accepted work that builds a consensus towards a conclusion that a phenomenon’s cause has been explained.

On contingency.

Science is contingent, it is never settled. I’ve been happy in accepting that the age of the universe since our Big Bang is 13.7 to 13.8 years old. It’s based on the best available scientific observations, analysis of data and there have been several successful attempts at verification, but that has been to the best of our available technology. Enter the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST.

In the first year of data collection from the edges of the visible universe, JWST has found red-shifted galaxies, and their calculated ages raise questions on our understanding of the age of the universe since the Big Bang. More data, more observations, more analysis, more querying, will aid our understanding and refine the theories on which the exploration of the distant past are based. But in my lifetime, the age of the universe has been adjusted more than once. All this is due to the fact that conclusions in science are contingent on corrections made by better science. Either scientists re-examine the data or gather new data, build better models, examine the presuppositions on which the science is based, or realize that they have been looking in the wrong direction entirely.

Rarely are any scientific conclusions final, and those few are final mostly in the negative. There’s no scientific doubt any longer that the universe was not created ex-nihilo 6,000 - 10,000 years ago. That ship has sailed long ago. Nor is there any reason to think that the stars are held in place by a firmament, nor that the sun revolves around the earth. Many concepts of common sense have been struck down by rational and data-driven inquiry over the years, not likely to rise again. Laws of nature and physics are reliably held, such as Newton’s laws of motion and the laws of thermodynamics.

Doveryai no Proveryai

This is the part where I quoted (gasp) Ronald Reagan. He signed a treaty with the Soviet Union limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and quoted the translation of the Russian proverb as “Trust, but Verify.” (Here’s an article by an architect who explains in-depth how important it is to be contingent when dealing with others. We can assume good-faith, but still hold out for verification.)

Science is not fully a matter of trust. If we laiety need to trust, it’s because we don’t have the extensive training needed to verify the science. That being said, it’s important to keep our trust contingent, and remember that the scientists who have done the work and spent the hours in training, are presumed to be acting in good faith. And a lack of good faith can often be found in the abstracts of papers on transgender science.

In my experience, the weakness of most articles about trans issues and treatment is that they begin with the presupposition that a gender identity is an actuality. I have yet to see anything that shows that a gender identity is anything more than a claim, or a precondition that is accepted without evidence beyond human personal experience of their gender. And as we know, experience is subject to perception.¹ A paper that uses a presupposition of gender identity doesn’t need to be trusted as valid science because we still have no demonstration that there are gender identities that can vary from the sex of the person.

How could we prove that gender identities are an observable phenomenon outside of the claims from the perception of those whose identity are trans? It’s very difficult, because these are not independently observable phenomena.

One of the most important principles of science is to practice it with the aim of eliminating personal biases of the investigators. Science is a process of investigating natural phenomena and their causes, after all. And if we allow our own biases to creep in, then we can’t be sure that our conclusions are reflective of natural phenomena. Instead they are more likely to be products of our own perceptions and the work we have done is tainted.

How is verification done? By ruthless examination from other scientists who have the training to root out the biases, if there is any. Science must be challenged, and not trusted. There are two quotes from Richard Feynman that stick with me:

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." ~ Richard P. Feynman, and "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool." ~ Richard P. Feynman

In other words, science is not built on trust. It is built on experimentation, observation and analysis. A critical thinker would rather not “trust the science,” but since we don’t have the background nor time to check all of the science that we come into contact with, we are often left with little choice. This doesn’t mean that we should blindly accept it all, though. We can learn what to look for, to poke holes and cast doubt. ²

If, in the article you are presented with, the paper depends on a presupposition that is not demonstrated, you can dismiss the conclusions as motivated. And the papers that I have seen that are presented to me as proof of the transgender claim, they all start with the idea that there are gender identities contrary to the sex of the individual.

You don’t need to trust that science, or any science for that matter. If a phenomenon is true to nature, it will withstand your informed scrutiny.

And, I don’t expect you trust me on this. I would rather you check it out for yourselves.

1. This is a different perspective on Berkeley’s famous esse es percippi, which I found easy to ridicule in Philosophy 101. It’s true that the universe doesn’t rely on me thinking and perceiving it, but the nature of the universe in my understanding is shaped by my perception of it. For example, a man that is 6’1” is tall in my perception of reality because I am shorter than that and must look up slightly to have a face to face conversation. But they are short in the perception of a man that is 6’6” tall. Their height is an absolute, but the perception of their height varies based on the perspective of other people.

2. This is not an endorsement of denialism. Denialism is to cast ignorant doubt and accept the doubt as facual retutation. This is why you need to be careful of anti-vaxxers and climate denialists, as they often misrepresent or don’t understand what they think they are refuting. Verify what they say, too.