I believe some of the differences between Bill Carter and
Jim Manzi reflect tensions between working scientists and the much smaller
group of “philosophers of science.” Although Manzi is not a professional
philosopher, his book draws heavily upon that academic field, with an emphasis
on Kuhn and Popper. Manzi’s statement “In science, theory precedes experiment”
reflects a strain of thinking in philosophy of science that experiments are
“theory-laden” — that scientists’ collection and interpretation of data is
heavily influenced by preconceptions.
How much merit there is to that line of thought I don’t
know; taken to an extreme, it could generate the sort of postmodern gibberish
deflated by Alan Sokal’s famous hoax. But where Bill dismissed Jim’s statement
as “false,” I’m inclined to say “debatable.” (I’ll take the liberty of some first-name
usage, though I haven’t met Manzi.) While I understand there is back-and-forth
in the philosophy of science about this sort of thing, I think it is fair to
say that scientists tend to be unimpressed by such philosophizing; and the philosophers
reciprocate by thinking scientists don’t take philosophy seriously enough.
Some of Carter’s criticisms emphasize that Manzi’s
discussion would be more thorough if he had addressed things he did not delve
into (blinding, confidence levels, etc.). Such criticisms are fair enough,
though it’s also true that Jim wrote a pretty dense and wide-ranging book as it
is. I would’ve liked to see something on some topics Bill didn’t mention, such
as why scientists are confident on matters of evolution and climate change that
are not generally addressable by controlled experiments. A good answer, I
think, is in philosopher Susan Haack’s analogy of science to a “crossword
puzzle” with interlocking lines of evidence. Maybe we can all agree there’s
material for a second Manzi book.
Lastly, I note that Bill was unimpressed by what he called
Jim’s “political rhetoric” and “libertarian statements.” As someone who’s had a
lot of exposure to libertarianism (and growing disagreements with it), I would
not be surprised if Manzi’s “liberty as means” and defense of the welfare state
get him some negative reviews from uncompromising libertarians. We’ll see. In
any case, Uncontrolled is a book that
provokes some interesting discussions.
