I consider “pretending to have sources and reasons” a worse sin than “not giving a source or reason”
I notice that one of the things that tips me off that a scientist is good, is if her/his work demonstrates curiosity. Do they seem like they’re actually trying to figure out the answer? Do they think though and address counterarguments, or just try to obscure those counterargument?
This seems related: a person who puts no source might still be sharing their actual belief, but a person who puts a fake source seems like they’re trying to sound legitimate.
Yes, this seems like a good guideline, although I can’t immediately formalize how I detect curiosity. Vague list of things this made me think of:
I think this is a better guideline for books than scientific articles, which are heavily constrained by academic social and funding norms.
One good sign is if *I* feel curious in a concrete way when I read the book. What I mean by concrete is...
e.g. Fate of Rome had a ton of very specific claims about how climate worked and how historical climate conditions could be known. I spent a lot of time trying to verify these and even though I ultimately found them insufficiently supported, there was a concreteness that I still give positive marks for.
In contrast my most recently written epistemic spot check (not yet published), I spent a long time on several claims along the lines of “Pre-industrial Britain had a more favorable legal climate for entrepreneurship than continental Europe”. I don’t recall the author giving any specifics on what he meant by “more favorable”, nor how he determined it was true. Investigating felt like a slog because I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for.
I worry I’m being unfair here because maybe if I’d found lots of other useful sources I’d be rating the original book better. But when I investigated I found there wasn’t even a consensus on whether Britain had a strong or weak patent system.
Moralizing around conclusions tends to inhibit genuine curiosity in me, although it can loop around to spite curiosity (e.g., Carol Dweck).
Thanks.
This point in particular sticks with me:
I notice that one of the things that tips me off that a scientist is good, is if her/his work demonstrates curiosity. Do they seem like they’re actually trying to figure out the answer? Do they think though and address counterarguments, or just try to obscure those counterargument?
This seems related: a person who puts no source might still be sharing their actual belief, but a person who puts a fake source seems like they’re trying to sound legitimate.
Yes, this seems like a good guideline, although I can’t immediately formalize how I detect curiosity. Vague list of things this made me think of:
I think this is a better guideline for books than scientific articles, which are heavily constrained by academic social and funding norms.
One good sign is if *I* feel curious in a concrete way when I read the book. What I mean by concrete is...
e.g. Fate of Rome had a ton of very specific claims about how climate worked and how historical climate conditions could be known. I spent a lot of time trying to verify these and even though I ultimately found them insufficiently supported, there was a concreteness that I still give positive marks for.
In contrast my most recently written epistemic spot check (not yet published), I spent a long time on several claims along the lines of “Pre-industrial Britain had a more favorable legal climate for entrepreneurship than continental Europe”. I don’t recall the author giving any specifics on what he meant by “more favorable”, nor how he determined it was true. Investigating felt like a slog because I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for.
I worry I’m being unfair here because maybe if I’d found lots of other useful sources I’d be rating the original book better. But when I investigated I found there wasn’t even a consensus on whether Britain had a strong or weak patent system.
Moralizing around conclusions tends to inhibit genuine curiosity in me, although it can loop around to spite curiosity (e.g., Carol Dweck).