Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Pat Flynn on Science vs. Scientism

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

If you enjoy my previous philosophical musings with my good buddy Pat Flynn, you’re going to enjoy this podcast. That’s because in it, Pat Flynn and I discuss the concept of scientism, “the Science” with a capital “S,” as well as epistemological questions like “how do we know what we know?” Pat is a repeat guest not only because I enjoy our conversations, but I’ve gotten great feedback from listeners who like hearing about these deeper, philosophical topics we wade through. Plus, I believe the answers to these “big” questions like the ones we discuss in these philosophical tangent episodes (or at least the act of thinking about them) can help us live a better life. In case you’re not familiar with Pat, not only is he a fitness expert who is known for his kettlebell prowess, but he’s also a podcaster, philosopher, and author. In our discussion, we talk about . . . Science with a capital “S” and how we know what we “know” When and why to be skeptical of “the science” What scientism is and what science can and can’t tell us The concept of a “bully consensus” How we can use this information to make better choices And a lot more . . . So, if you want to learn what scientism is, why science isn’t always the answer to all questions, and how we really know what we know, listen to this podcast! Timestamps: 0:00 - New Recharge flavor Grape is out now! Try Recharge risk-free today! Go to buylegion.com/recharge and use coupon code MUSCLE to save 20% or get double reward points 6:58 - Is the science behind the vaccine safe? Is what we think we know real? 26:45 - Why should I be skeptical about science? 30:53- How can we “know things” through science? 36:24 - Do you have examples of scientific research that has proved certainty or truth? 41:40 - What is the human relationship with science? 1:04:48 - Should we be skeptical of science or trust science? 1:23:33 - How can this information help us to make better choices in our lives? Mentioned on the Show: New Recharge flavor Grape is out now! Try Recharge risk-free today! Go to buylegion.com/recharge and use coupon code MUSCLE to save 20% or get double reward points! The Pat Flynn Show: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-pat-flynn-show/id1253261458 Chronicles of Strength: https://www.chroniclesofstrength.com/

Hello, friend, and welcome to Muscle for Life. I am Michael Matthews, your gracious host. Thank you for joining me today for an interview I did with my buddy, Pat Flynn, and not the smart passive income Pat Flynn, the Chronicles of Strength Pat Flynn, who I've had on the show several times before for philosophical musing. That sounds kind of pretentious, but maybe we should just call it navel gazing. But if you liked our previous jam sessions, then here's another one for you to enjoy. And in this one, Pat and I discuss the concept of scientism, how that differs from science. And that goes into epistemological questions like, how do we know what we know? And in case you are not familiar with Pat, he is not only a fitness

expert known for his kettlebell prowess, but he's also a podcaster, a philosopher by training, and I guess by trade. That has been his focus of a lot of his writing, his academic writing. I know he's working on getting some of that work published. In fact, it might already be done by now in the process of peer review. And Pat's also an author. He's written several books. And in this interview, him and I talk about when and why to be skeptical of the science, especially when it has the capital S. The science is settled. What scientism is and what science can and cannot tell us.

A concept called the bully consensus, which is important to understand if you are going to try to wade through some of the more controversial scientific arguments like climate change, for example, and more. Before we get to it, your ability to gain muscle and gain strength is greatly impacted by how well your body can recover from your training and how strong you get in your training. And that's why it's not enough to just hammer away at the weights every week. You have to watch your calories and watch your macros. You have to maintain good sleep hygiene. You have to avoid overtraining. And you can also speed up your post-workout recovery and your muscle and strength gain with supplementation. And that's why

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20% or get 10% cash back in reward points. Try recharge risk-free and see what you think. Patrick Flynn is back. Hey man. It's a pleasure as always, Mr. Matthews. Thank you for having me. Yes, yes. I'm looking forward to today's discussion. Something that is more relevant now than at least any other time I can remember in my lifetime. And to start us off, I think a good And to start us off, I think a good springboard into this discussion is an anecdote that I'll share. And this is a discussion that I've had with quite a few people. And it's going to be regarding the COVID vaccine, just because it's controversial and it perks up people's ears. So, so, so somebody will say to me, the vaccine is safe, right? And, and I'll ask, well, what do you mean? What do you mean by safe?

And they say, well, the chances of side effects are very, very low. Okay. How do you know that? Oh, well, that's what the science says. Well, how do you know what the science says? Have you reviewed it yourself? Have you looked at the science says? Have you reviewed it yourself? Have you looked at the research yourself? Have you looked at the data yourself? No, but I mean, I trust those who have reviewed it, the experts. Okay, fine. So then what you're saying is you believe the vaccine is safe based on the information that has been presented to you by certain people. And then I've yet to have someone just say, well, yeah, yeah, that's correct. What they usually say or always say is some version of, no, no, I don't believe anything. The vaccine is safe. The science

says so. And then I'll point out, but you didn't review the data. You didn't participate in the investigations that produced the data. So how do you know, how do you know what the science says? Like, you know, what you ate for breakfast today. And then it's again, well, it's because the, the experts and the consensus and all credentialed, all these people, they investigated it and they all say it's safe. And then I go, OK, fine. So you believe that the vaccine is safe based on the claims of certain experts then, correct? No, it's safe. I trust the science.

Yes. I mean, this level of stupidity is kind of gobsmacking to me. And for people listening, realize that I didn't make the claim that the vaccine isn't safe. I didn't even say that. I was only trying to make the point that how do we really know what we think we know? And this applies to, you know, that to so much more than just the vaccine. I'm not just trying to attack. We'll generalize this because I'm not trying to get banned for being on the Mike Matthews show. But I mean, we'll bring it into relevant aspects, I guess. But really, Mike, what you're asking is the fundamental question of epistemology. So if people haven't

heard our previous conversations, my actual sort of formal backgrounds in philosophy and epistemology asks exactly that type of question right epistemology just concerns with it's just concerned with theories of knowledge right what is knowledge um well how do we know what we know what are the sort of conditions that need to be in place for us to say that we have knowledge so you're really asking a very deep epistemological question what is the difference between knowledge and belief for example i mean if you go all the way back to plato it seems like plato wants to say that that knowledge is something like justified true belief right uh but then there's been uh obviously a lot of as philosophers do they they argue they disagree that's just a profession right uh but But really, I guess, fundamentally, in the

1960s, there was a famous very short paper by a guy named Gettier, where he proposed some pretty challenging counterexamples to that idea of knowledge. And this has become known as Gettier cases. So this has kind of exploded the field of epistemology into many different theories, trying to solve this issue of being Gettierized. And we can maybe talk about some of those cases if people are interested in it. But they're really just cases where it seems like we need something else aside from just sort of mere true belief to have knowledge. And what is that something else? Can you give one example of these?

Yeah. One's pretty goofy. It sounds very abstract, but... Yeah, yeah. So let me think of one that's not from Gettier, but kind of more recent. It actually, yeah, this one, I got to redownload it in my memory. Actually, the example's given in my state of Wisconsin. So imagine that, imagine you're driving through Wisconsin, right?

And unbeknownst to you, somebody puts up a bunch of fake barns, right? They're fake barns. They're just, they're just not real barns, but they look like barns if you're, if you're driving, uh, sort of down, down the road and the highway. Right. Uh, but by happenstance, uh, you actually, in between all the fake barns, you, you, you do pass a real barn and you come to form the belief that that's a sort of a real barn. But there seems to be something wrong about that, right? Because it just seems like that was just kind of just lucky, right? Like you're right. It's a true belief. That's a real barn. But given those circumstances, it seems like we like, yeah, it just seems like there's something about that

where we don't want to quite say that you have knowledge because there's sort of a degree of just weird epistemic luck there, right? So that would be an example of, and of course, with philosophy, all these examples are often highly contrived. But that's the point of doing thought experiments in philosophy, right? You try to stress test different models, different models of knowledge, or with ethics, you have classic trolley problems, right? But trying to give counter examples or break a model, even with very contrived situations. So examples like that are meant to be contrived, but they're meant to stress test or break a model or understanding of something like knowledge. And so this has, and maybe we can try and tie this back into your question, because

really what you're talking about, what you're probing somebody on, is whether we can have knowledge and testimony. That's what you're getting, knowledge and testimony. And actually, Mike, I want to say, yes, generally we can have knowledge and testimony, and we can actually call it knowledge. We can have what's called warrant. Warrant is supposed to be this term in epistemology, this quality that sort of gets us from just, yeah, mere true belief to actual knowledge. And I think we want to have to say that that's the case, right? Because so much of what we think we know and believe about the world is based on testimony, right? Like even my own name, even where I was born, right, is something I received through testimony. Obviously, most of our scientific knowledge, most of us are not running the experiments ourselves, stuff like born, right? It's something I received through testimony. Obviously, most of our scientific knowledge, most of us are not running the experiments ourselves,

stuff like that, right? So I think the general position is, yeah, it seems like I should be able to have knowledge through testimony. Otherwise, I'm going to be stuck in a real deep skeptical pit. Unless and until I have what's in philosophy, unless until I have a defeater of it, some reason to question the testimony or some reason to think that that testimony was unreliable. And in the examples that you gave without going right back into the

controversial topic, the question would be, well, is there a sort of rival testimony or a rival expertise that would challenge the original testimony that I received? There's some other reason to think that the testimony I received is unreliable. So, yeah, I don't know where we want to go from this, but I do want to say that I think a correct theory of knowledge, and if we want to get into it, I hold to a theory called proper functionalism and externalism, should be able to say that we can get knowledge from testimony. However, it's open to defeat, right? That it's not a sort of incorrigible or infallible knowledge, right? It's sort of, it's a knowledge that can be defeated. Right. In the presence of some evidence or circumstance that would call into question the reliability of the testimony. So I just threw a lot out there. Pick out any parts of it that you want that seem relevant. questioning that I'll, that I'll use. Not, not necessarily doesn't have to be with,

with the vaccine, but it is usually with more controversial, um, with, with, with the cultural footballs that just get passed back and forth endlessly. Right. And, and that is, let's take, let's take something like climate change, also controversial. Uh, some, some people, of course, they will say that the science is settled, but then you have many credentialed people who say, well, we can all acknowledge that climate is changing, but the science of why is certainly not settled. And, and so somebody will tell me the primary reason why is we humans are burning fossil fuels and we're releasing too much carbon in the atmosphere. And that's it. That, that is the primary reason why. Right. And, um, and then there's, there are the questions that I could ask same type of questions in the, in the case of the vaccine, how do you know that? But then, but then there's this other point of counter testimony, right. And I will ask, okay. Um, Okay. So what are a few plausible counter arguments to that position? Can you tell me,

ideally, could you tell me like the top three strongest counter arguments to what you just said? Because in the case of climate change, you can find some good ones. You can find some very credentialed people who will offer a counter testimony to the mainstream narrative, so to speak. And I'm not even saying they're right, but I'm just saying they're out there. I've seen them myself. And can you explain to me then first what those strong, can you steel man the opposite? Can you explain the strongest counterpoints and why you are not convinced by them? Why you think those people are wrong or you think the weight of the evidence is with the other side? things where people will say things, be very quick to, to say things as if they have it all figured out. They are certain that this is reality. But then, but then it becomes very clear, very quickly that they have not even considered the other side. And that also to me is it's, it's hard to understand. I understand we don't necessarily have the time or the

inclination to uh explore all of the world with such depth and all the things that are going on but then why why don't we and i try to do this myself i'm human this is just part of human nature. So I do try to consciously remind myself of things that I feel like I have enough knowledge and I have at least I can I can speak deeply enough to defend something that I can say, hey, I here's what I think. I think that there's a good chance that I'm right. And let me explain why. You know what I mean? And then there are things like climate change where I would say, you know, I don't know. Because I've heard good arguments on both sides of this issue. And I haven't looked into it enough to be able to, if I had to make a big bet, I would pick one side versus the other if I had to, but I wouldn't be highly confident in this bet. Why isn't there more of that? You weakly lean towards a particular hypothesis, right? You have a certain degree of confidence

in a particular hypothesis. And I will say that I might be wrong. Yeah, of course. But they're just, in having many conversations many conversations with over social media and email with people about so many things that that mentality is not. It's just not common. You're certainly right. And again, not to veer away from the super controversial issues. We go into them if you want. But I think there's some good general points to explore here. You're earlier brought up knowing what you had for breakfast.

And that's an interesting case. How do you know what you had for breakfast? Well, you seem to just have this deep intuition and then seeming that you have these sort of memory experiences and that they're reliable, right? But of course, philosophers have... Memory is not reliable, though. Yeah, but I mean, go back to Descartes, right?

His sort of, you know, demonic hallucination, you know, thought experiment, right? Well, maybe it's just all the, you know, the result of some demon causing you to think you had oatmeal for breakfast, but really you didn't, right? Or brain in the vat scenarios or simulation hypothesis. So all these things can be called into question by globally skeptical scenarios. And I would say a good epistemology has to sort of be able to deal with that, right? And the one that I hold to, there's actually a sort of a link here between how we could say that we are warranted in saying, I know what I had for breakfast and in what I know through certain chains of testimony. And it has to do with something about the sort of aim or the goal-directedness of our cognitive powers, that our cognitive powers have a proper function, that they're operating in a sort of environment which they were originally meant to or designed to operate in, and that they're not only directed at the attainment of truth,

but they're operating toward a good design plan that has a high statistical likelihood of actually getting truth. Those are like the different conditions that have to be in place for us to get that quality of warrant, which can come in degrees, right? It can come in degrees, right? And that come in, it can come in degrees, right? And that's kind of what you're. And just to that point, to, to, to, I think to state it very simply, good enough is, is a different, uh, that's different with different things.

If we're talking about like, uh, how do, how do I know what I had for breakfast? Uh, well, let's see, I could video myself eating the breakfast. But you're still relying on- No, I know, I know. What I'm saying though is I could video myself. Here's a little experiment, see if I remember correctly. Okay, that's interesting. I could, if I were to eat something that let's say causes my stomach to be upset, and I could run that experiment a couple of times videoed. There's a point where you go, all right, this is good enough for my purposes, my purposes of controlling my calories or my macros, for example. But pause right there because notice you're

already assuming the reliability of memory. Oh, no, I know. I know. I know what I'm saying. What I'm saying, though, is you can't you have to, though, or you can't live your life. Like, there's a point where you can't live your life in these radically skeptical scenarios. And most people obviously hear these skeptical scenarios and they think that they're just ridiculous. And I agree. They are ridiculous. They're not true. But they're meant to do something. They're meant for us. They're meant to get us to be more critically reflective about who we are and what knowledge is and what the conditions or knowledge are. So they serve an important purpose there. And what they would do in this scenario is say like, look, it seems like

some beliefs are just properly basic. We don't believe these things because we infer them from something else, right? There's a deep intuition and seeming here. It really seems like my knee hurts. So I just believe that my knee hurts, right? And I'm sort of warranted and believe that it just really seems like two plus two equals four. And so I just believe that two plus two equals four. And I'm more like, I'm not making inferences to these beliefs. They're called properly basic. Another one is what's in philosophy known as the problem of other minds. How do I know that you're just not a really cleverly programmed android, Mike Matthews? Well, it just really seems like you're somebody else who's an embodied mind like I am.

This is a properly basic belief. Now, what makes me warranted in that will come down to the reliability of these sort of deep intuitions and stuff like that. And then you have to build out this whole, I mean, epistemology is a huge field, right? So we can't get into all of it now, this whole account, right? That can help sort of undergird that and substantiate that. And I kind of gave you the basic account of what would be called a proper functionalism. But then I would say you also have to take an external- Predictive power has to be a part of that, right? What kind of predictions can you make based on your beliefs and do they

bear out? That's going to be getting, I think, a little bit more into the topic we want to get to later in terms of science and what we should expect of science and what the criteria is for something to count as scientific. And I think being predictably fruitful is the case there. I think we're at something even much more bedrock right now, which is epistemology. So in short, what I want to say is that there are things that we really can say we're warranted in knowing. for breakfast memory, my belief in other minds and indeed beliefs that I get through testimony. Right. But these beliefs can be defeated. Now they can be defeated if I have reason to think that I've encountered a sort of situation where I've been duped or something is unreliable. Right. So when it comes to like some testimony, like I just have no reason to doubt that it's correct. Like my parents told me what my name is. And when I was like i just don't really i've never seen any evidence

or reason to think that they're lying to me about when and where i was born and what my name was and all that so i just i and who cares yeah well i mean i guess i would kind of if you were to find out that you were born elsewhere you'd be like that's kind of weird that they uh yeah so for that does, would it change anything about you and how you live and your thoughts about anything, but now think about maybe, maybe aside from your parents, it just doesn't seem like there's any reason why they would want to lie to me or need to lie, lie to me. Right. Um, now maybe I just haven't thought of that yet, but that, yeah, it just seems right to say that, no, I really do know when and where

I was born, even though I don't have any memory of it or videotape evidence or anything like that. Right. And that comes from testimony. However, we know and there's been many papers published on this. That certain, you know, sometimes they're called a bully consensus can form, right? In academia, in science, in philosophy, and a bully consensus is when a consensus isn't established really on the basis of evidence, but on the basis of social pressures, political pressures, all these sorts of things. Economic pressures. Whatever they are, right? So this might be reason to question a chain of testimony in certain regards. Right. Do you think that there's a chance here that there's that there's a bully consensus or something like that?

Right. Are there perverse incentives at work that might be a detriment to the actual truth getting out or somebody reliably reporting what is actually the case versus just doing what they need to do or want to do to get ahead politically or economically or socially. Or just or just just to fit in, not be ostracized, not lose their license to practice medicine. Right. 100 percent. Yeah. So 100 percent. And I want to say without getting into too many details is there's many areas where that's the case, where I myself remain agnostic on certain issues because I just don't see that I have reason to think that there's a reliable chain of testimony here. Now, that doesn't to say that I can't have knowledge of testimony at all. I think you have to be able to say that. But there can be instances where you can reasonably question testimony. And in fact, it would be unreasonable not to question it once you reach a certain degree of evidence or instances where you think. I mean, and this is common sense, right? If you've been repeatedly lied to by somebody before, right, you would think you're a fool if you keep trusting their testimony, right?

Like this person has proven themselves unreliable. Or if somebody has been to jail multiple times for defrauding investors or has been to jail just once for doing that, and then they come to you to ask if you want to invest in their latest scheme, you would have grounds for at least being skeptical. Yeah, and this isn't to say that they're wrong, right? It's not saying that they're wrong, but it would be a sort of- Well, they say they've changed. They've learned their lesson. Maybe they have, right?

But it would be a reason to be hesitant, certainly about just adopting whatever they say and reason to do a more thorough investigation yourself, right? And I think that connects with what you've said before, right? If you have reasons to think that the sort of transmission or even generation of certain information might be unreliable, it doesn't mean that it's wrong. It doesn't mean that it's false, but it would be reason to at least be a little hesitant and that you should take extra steps to really try and investigate this and adjudicate it for yourself. And then a good thought exercise is, and again, especially with, with controversial

issues is to think about why, why might somebody want to lie to me or some group? Why might they want to lie to me about this? And a very easy place to start is always money, money, question mark. Is there a lot of money in this? Could there be a lot of money in lying about this? And if the answer is yes, then you shouldn't be quick to dismiss that, I think. Right. And again, I just want to just be careful, I guess, is that just because there's money, there's this money incentive. It does. It doesn't mean that it's necessarily wrong. But I think you're right. I think you're right. It's reason for a more thorough investigation. Absolutely. in lying about something. Let's get into science, for example. Okay. Why, why should I be more skeptical about the science of, again, let's say, let's say climate change. And that's not to say that I know whether ultimately we, by burning fossil fuels are driving climate change or not, but why should I be more skeptical of let's even say what's, what's represented as a scientific consent consensus

about that versus the scientific consensus about how to build muscle? Are you asking me that question? Well, it's just a rhetorical but that you can answer it's just it's let me um let me these these things are not the same but yeah let me hold this up first this is a good book people want to i think get a very uh more realistic idea on science it's called science fictions how fraud bias negligence and hype undermine the search for truth and i think people forget the first off science and maybe we should back up a little bit here before we get into your question right um is an exceedingly broad kind of camp right like what what is science first off uh that's a first off that's not a scientific question right that's a philosophical question science can't even really define its own its own boundaries its own conceptual

boundaries and in fact there's many scientists uh who argue among themselves whether other scientists uh i just read an article just from a physicist the other day who wants us to stop calling psychology a science because it doesn't meet certain criteria according uh to to him of what a science should be now again that's not a question you can answer but that isn't an argument you can make qua physicists right that's an argument he's making uh qua philosopher of science or something like that, right? What does qua mean? As, like in the role as, right? He's not making that argument in the role as a physicist, right?

Obviously, nothing in physics can tell you what you count as a science, right? But he's sort of assuming the role as a philosopher. I actually thought it was a pretty good argument. I forget some of the details right now. But even the origin of psychology, right, like when it was first around, it was very much considered a pseudoscience, right? And then it sort of, you gives us in its conclusions than physics is. I don't think anybody denies that, right? Physics, people often see as a sort of- Well, the replication crisis is particularly applicable. I mean, it was psychology and economics that really kicked off the replication crisis,

which this book goes into huge detail about, and for people who are unfamiliar is that it just seems like a great number of uh uh scientific findings that were used as sort of the launch pad and basis uh for a lot of policies and consensus um have not been able to be replicated and in fact in many instances have been falsified, right? And this is, this is a, this is a huge problem, right? Cause this was like foundational for a lot of stuff. And this has not been resolved. Now it's important to understand that this, this does affect, uh, some sciences worse than others like psychology, like economics. Um, but I guess the harder the science gets, the more susceptible it is to quantification, mathematicization, stuff like that.

This seems to become less of an issue. And of course, this ties into the argument the physicist was making against psychology. It's just not a hard enough field to be rightfully called science was his argument. And I think the replication crisis is something that he didn't point to it in this article, but he would, right? And certainly, we do feel like that is an important aspect, right? We should be able to replicate our results if we have a sturdy and reliable theory. Anyways, I'm rambling at this point, Mike, so you have to circle me back around to the point we wanted to get on here. I think that's a good introduction and just a good segue into knowing things, quote-unquote knowing things. How can we, especially laymen, know things through science? Yeah, good connection, because this will bring us back around to epistemology.

So there is an epistemology, and I think this is sort of very much, it's sort of trickled down into our culture without a lot of people knowing it, called scientism. Now, scientism isn't science. Scientism is an epistemology. It's a theory of knowledge. And proponents of scientism will say the only things we can know are those things which come out of the hypothetical deductive method, the scientific method. aren't, right? That we gather data, we reason inductively up to some general theory, and then we use that theory and reason deductively down by trying to make and test predictions and stuff like that, right? Whatever else science is, it seems to be a large agreement that it should follow that type, it should have that type of structure to it, right? Now, the problem with scientism, right? And again, this is like, you see this, even though people don't articulate it very well, and they may not even believe that they are kind are in this camp, you see it almost just operative every day. People just say, just trust the science, capital S science.

They take this devotional attitude to the science. Kind of creepy in some respects. But scientism faces a fundamental issue. Right. And that fundamental issue, I would say, is that it's either self-defeating or it's trivial. Right. This is the problem with scientism is an epistemology. The only things we can know are the things that come through the scientific method. Right. Why is it self-defeating? Well, that claim that the only things we can know must come through the scientific method is not something that comes through the scientific method right so it doesn't even meet its own standard doesn't even meet its own criteria right so so according to scientism then we can't know that claim well if we can't know that claim then how can we why should we how can we operate according to it right now what uh what they could do at this point if they want to kind of hold on to that scientism-y attitude, is just make scientism trivial by expanding the definition of science to include everything else, including philosophy.

But the problem is most scientists don't want to call philosophy a science. And I actually think that's right. Philosophy is philosophy. It's not science. Right. So it's so scientism is either going to be self-defeating or it's going to be trivial. But it's also obvious that we do know many things, but not because of science and science itself must presuppose many things. It can't it can't sort of justify or establish its own assumptions that it needs to even get off the ground. We've talked about some of these things, right? We have to have a reliable memory to do science. We just assume memory is reliable. There's no test we can run to show that

our memory is reliable because it always assumes that it is, right? It always assumes that I remember the data here and I compare it to the data there. So there's no way that I could verify through the scientific method either the reliability of my memory or any of my senses. That my senses are reliable, that there's an external world. Science has to assume all of this. I couldn't verify. Couldn't we develop experiments that would allow us to say things with a high level of certainty? Not in this respect, not without vicious circularity, right? Because all the experiments fundamentally

are already dependent upon me believing and assuming that my senses are reliable, right? So I'm immediately- Well, correct. Yeah. But what I'm saying is that we could, I would think that through experiments, we could get to a point where we could at least say,

I have a good reason. Here are some good reasons to believe why my senses are correct. Not through science. You can't always be viciously circular. You can use science to get to good reasons and a credence, right? A degree of confidence in things beyond that FB makes assumption, but there's no way from science you're ever going to be able to to argue without a vicious circularity that your senses are reliable because everything about experimentation right you're already assuming that your senses are viable right you see that like you're just no no of course i get that what i'm saying though is for for the practical uh use of of of living and being able to do things and

being able to build things and accomplish able to build things yeah i mean you can take a blind leap of faith but it's not verified by science it's assumed by no no but what we could say is hey this is good enough for our purposes well yeah what's come come back to the is the demon is the demon tricking me into thinking things okay i do my experiment with my recordings well did the demon did the demon create the recordings? There's a point where you just go, you know, I guess I don't really care because for my purpose of let's say losing weight. Yeah. I'm going to assume that I remember correctly.

Yeah. Well, well, well, let's not switch subjects, right? Cause the subject right now is not whether my senses are viable. I think they are. And I think there's good philosophical reason, uh reason to trust our deep intuitions on that. What we're talking about now are the things that science cannot tell us about in principle that science must assume. So we're challenging the false assumption that everything we know comes through science. That's what we're talking about right now.

We can go further. Right. comes through science. That's what we're talking about right now. We can go further, right? Are there some examples of things that you feel science, because some people might be thinking, well, they might have a high level of respect and reverence for the scientific method, regardless of how familiar they are with it. And they might generally believe that, well, if something is true, then we should be able to, through science, come to a high level of certainty of its truth. It might take a long time and a lot of experiments. You know what I mean? No, no. Because that already assumes that science is exhaustive, right? And that's exactly what I'm challenging. What I'm going to say is science is really good for telling us about certain aspects of reality, and there's other aspects of reality that just fall right through the methodological net, and they're just not in also mathematical truths, logical truths. These are things that science presupposes. Without math and logic, science

goes nowhere, right? There's moral truths. This is really important, right? Scientists have to assume, I would argue, a sort of binding and objective moral landscape to the world, right? Why? Because they assume that it's just wrong to lie about your data, to lie about your results, to lie about your conclusions. If that isn't an assumption going into science. Yeah. Good luck. Science being reliable. Right. And we know sometimes people don't actually follow that, you know, the sort of moral rules, if you will. And that is, of course, a great detriment to science. So science can't tell us anything about morality, right? This is well agreed upon, certainly among the broad swath of philosophers. You got a few people here and there who make some valiant, pathetic attempts, but it always

falls short, right? The science- Wouldn't that run counter to the agreed purpose of science? Because if you're just inventing data, then that is not now serving the purpose of the scientific arc that you mentioned. Yeah. So you have that's now a whole new approach to, quote unquote, science that is is not in keeping with even the original spirit of the scientific method. Yeah. You would have what Kant has. There is the sort of what's called a hypothetical imperative. Like, Hey, if we want to get,

you know, accurate or reliable and accurate understanding or a model of something, then we probably shouldn't fake the data, right? But I think people want something stronger that they want, but call it categorical. Like you shouldn't fake the data period. Right. And certainly there's nothing in science that should that that will that will verify that. And also there's there's deeper sort of moral commitments that go into science as well, which we can get into as we move along.

sort of uh normativity is is it's a web it's a web uh uh certainly between um the logic mathematics and morality so i think these things are all bound up in a very deep way but i think we probably covered enough at this point right so science can't tell us just to recap the science can't tell us about the reliability of our senses and tell us about reality it can't tell us about um uh that there really is an external world right these are things that we assume it can't science assumes logic it assumes mathematics right so there's all these different aspects of the world uh that we think we have knowledge about that clearly doesn't come from science because it must be assumed in order to even do science right so aside from scientism being sort of self-defeating, there's also just, it's just very clear that science

is not bedrock, right? It's clearly, and that's why you have disciplines like philosophy of science, right? That's why philosophy of science exists to sort of investigate the foundations of science and also to help interpretation of science, right? A lot of times what comes out of science is open to any number of different interpretations. They take like quantum mechanics. So last I checked, it was like 10 to 12 different empirically equivalent interpretations of what the implications of quantum mechanics are, right? And that's something that philosophers of science try to help get conceptual clarity about. And then, and this is where kind of like science and metaphysics and all these, these different disciplines start to bleed to try and make sense of, of stuff that science is telling us, but it isn't exactly clear what is being told in these instances, if that makes sense. Um, so now remind me of what you, of what you said

before, so we can circle back. Those are, those are good thoughts on, on what, uh what, just to put science, I guess, in its correct place in the hierarchy of many people like you is the leading brand of all natural sports supplements in the world. about a bit about of the a bit about the human side of science because as you mentioned and of course I've come across this we all come across this that many people will represent science as its science with the big s it's it's monolithic and there is a general belief it's settled in certain areas, right? And also that it works with the accuracy and the impartiality of your computer running some math problems, right? And it just spits out the answer. And what many people don't want to even consider is the very human aspect. You had mentioned this bully consensus. That's one element

of it um you know the max plank i believe it was him the famous physicist yeah he's he's the guy i think you said science progresses one funeral at a time that's right yeah it takes a couple decades yeah and his point is that you have you have and is, there are many examples of this in many different disciplines where you have a new theory that turns out to be right, but it doesn't just immediately triumph. It doesn't just convince somebody comes forward with, and it can be well-reason reasoned they can already have empirical evidence and to outsiders it actually might seem very plausible like oh wow that actually makes a lot of sense but in in the scientific world and again there are many examples i'm sure you can share some of them of what is eventually accepted as a true idea first being vilified and um opposed by by the powers that be so to speak and it and it takes a lot of people who who are more just vested in maintaining the status quo often if they and and often these people they contributed to the status

quo so if they were to acknowledge that this new idea actually better explains this whole thing than their own work then they would be invalidating in some cases their life's work yeah and so it just in many cases it requires those people to finally die and go away and then to have a new generation of of peers come up and be willing to even entertain this new idea that, again, eventually is becomes accepted. That's right. The dominant. That's true. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's right. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's right. If you study the history of science, the history of scientific ideas, you'd be surprised to see how resistant people were to some of the mainstream theories today. I mean, Darwin, for example, people were extremely resistant at first, but also Big of, uh, it's actually quite interesting. It was a Catholic priest, Father Giorgio Meiccia, who first sort of presented the equations, uh, to Einstein and Einstein actually sort of fudged the equations to keep the universe, uh, static. And, uh, he later admitted, uh, that this was one of the biggest mistakes that, that, that sort of he,

he ever made in his, in scientific career, that he was wrong. Now, there was other evidence that came in later that supported what is now sort of the standard understanding of Bing Bang cosmology. Or maybe a more empathetic example of Semmelweis. It's probably Semmel vice it's a hungarian doctor yeah well just the real quick thing i was going to say about uh some of these examples is that that the reason there is there's resistance is is this what you're talking about it's a human element it's prior commitments it's prior philosophical commitments metaphysical commitments uh sometimes just wanting also just sometimes just wanting the world don't want to be wrong right sometimes they just don't want to be wrong. Right. They just don't want to be wrong. That's a huge part of it, man.

I mean, people get really attached, emotional, to their theories, to their models. They do. This is true for scientists. This is true for philosophers, right? People come up with ideas, and it becomes their pets. They're precious, right? And they do. They get really attached.

This is just the human element of it, right? pets they're precious right and they do they get they get really attacked this is a this is this is just the human element of it right and it takes a very i think mature uh mind it's something we all have to fight against to to be willing to kind of kill your pet if need be and that's not an easy thing to do i mean i see it all the time especially in philosophical circles man people will go to their grave i mean this isn't in in fiction right i mean this is the old kill your darlings where so many it is it is exactly novelists they'll say that they know the character needs to die for the purpose of the story but they just don't want to do it yeah man people love their theories their theories are their pets right and i you just see

it all the time uh it doesn't matter sort of how much pressure is against it how much evidence is against how many arguments are against it uh people just have a hard time letting go and when people who um are are suffering from that when when they also have power when they are gatekeepers, when they decide what is approved and what is not approved, then you can have even bigger problems. That's right. Yeah. I mean, this is kind of getting into some of the dirty details, which again, I can't recommend this book highly enough, Science Fictions by Stuart Ritchie, by the way. Yeah. I mean, it's just none of this is as clean and neat as I think people on the popular level think it is. Now, I'm more in the philosophical circles, but I got a lot of friends who are professional scientists. It's the same issue all

the time. There's a lot of political games. There's a lot of checking people at the gate, right? Like, you know, checking them before they can even get into the review process and stuff like that because, you know, their ideas might be seen as unfashionable or unwelcome in various ways. Right. So even me, like I've had papers that were clearly never even just just looked at because I was trying to to challenge just certain things. And I'll give you a great example of a bully consensus. If you want to do something controversial, take contemporary gender. Right. Take contemporary gender through. Take contemporary gender through. This is an issue where there is clear mob mentality.

There's virtually no reason to think that this is at all coherent. There's virtually every reason, philosophical and scientific, to think that it is incoherent. Yet people are terrified to publish on it because the mob will come down the mob has come down people who've uh critiqued it uh and i i've got lots of lots of friends in the academy want to say stuff about it but are afraid to uh they they don't want to publish on it at all not because they don't have arguments but they know if they do they will be in some sense sort of marginalized or punished or something like that. Right. So this is an instance where I don't like whatever people, um, now this is an area where I, you know, I'm sort of qualified to assess arguments and stuff like that, but it's a, it's, it's, it's, it's something where like, I don't care what the expert says about gender theory, right? Like this

is, this is nonsense, right? This is, this is, this is, this is a garbage ideology. It really is a political ideology that has taken hold in certain philosophical circles. And then it's like being pushed out from academia into the culture at large. And it's got a really strong bully consensus, like really strong. It punishes dissenters through all sorts of various nefarious means. And that works. Intimidation works. You know, threats work. Cancellation works. So you have this sort of sacred icon, if you will, that is, I would argue, beyond nonsense. It doesn't even raise the level of nonsense that like nobody is allowed to question, right? When you have every reason to question this, every reason to believe that

what's being promoted is absolutely false, but there it is. And it's becoming more and more mainstream every single day, not because there's good reasons to believe that it's true or any sort of evidence in its favor. Uh, it's just a pure sort of deep political ideology that has just worked its way up and gotten enough, I guess, structures in place to allow it to exert power. Right. And what would you say to people who would ask, well, why? Why are there so many credentialed, influential people? Why would they push this if it weren't true or if it weren't useful or it weren't more right than wrong? Well, it's useful, or at least they think it's useful. Useful, let's say if it weren't constructive, if it weren't closer to the truth, which is at the essence of science.

The problem is there's often a lot of sort of postmodern ideology that's underneath a lot of this stuff that would even challenge notions of truth to begin with. So we have to remember that's in the background of a lot of bias. But a lot of people who are engaged on the professional level, there's a divide between professional and the popular level of the transgender debate. People on the professional level, what they'll tell you is, no, we are engaged in a sort of game of conceptual engineering here. And we think that this will be useful to solve a social problem, whatever that is, harm to certain people. Right. And that's that's kind of what they're what they're after right um so it is it is and then on the flip side that and that the costs of uh adopting this are very low that would be part of the argument but a lot of them will say no we are just doing

conceptual engineering right so um yeah a lot of the professionals will say no like a biological man never be a biological woman. We're just kind of reengineering what we mean by woman. But the problem in the professional literature, this is something called known as the trans inclusion problem. Right. And this is a mess. Right. Because there's many different conversations going on at many different levels and people have no idea what's going on. So I'll try and clarify at least some of it. Right. at many different levels and people have no idea what's going on. So I'll try and clarify at least some of it. And the trans inclusion problem, I had a conversation with a philosopher friend of

mine who's published in this area, who's just waiting to lose his job over some of his critiques, is this, right? How do we get a definition of woman that isn't just trivial or a tautology that a woman is anybody who identifies, but will also include all the people that we want in the definition of woman, but exclude all the people that we don't want. And the philosophical problem is that's impossible. You're never going to be able to do that. And you can try and define a woman in certain ways that a woman is just somebody who suffers

certain indignities. That's the definition some people will give. But again, you'll seem to get people in that you don't want in. And you also exclude people that you do want in, or maybe you'll say that, or this is another approach is you'll just kind of park. The definition of women in certain stereotypes,

right. Which is kind of counterproductive to what a lot of feminists have been trying to go against anyways. And this is why in the philosophical circles, you now have kind of warring camps between what has been labeled TERFs, trans exclusionary radical feminists, and those continue to push the warring ideology. But the problem, and this is what my friend Thomas Lugardus argues, and this is right, is that like, look, as soon as you divorce the concept of woman from an adult human female, right, that's a sort of biological teleology, right? It's a sort of nature that's at the readiness to fulfill a particular biological role. You're never going

to be able to solve this problem, right? You're just never going to be able to solve this trans inclusion problem. This is a project that in principle is something that cannot be solved, right? And of course, the traditional definition of woman is an adult female, and this is true. But we do want to get our definition of this right, right? It's not somebody that just has ovaries or a certain chromosomal makeup because you can have defects and deformities. And these are one of the sort of sophistical arguments people make. Well, is somebody not a woman if they have chromosomal abnormalities and stuff

like that? And the response to that there is no. A woman is a particular nature that is at the readiness that under normal conditions would be able to fulfill a biological role. But of course, we account for abnormalities and defects and stuff like that all the time. I mean, all of medicine already presupposes this, right? And in fact, that's why we have medicine. We assume that there's sort of norms or ranges of norms and that things can go wrong, right?

We don't call clubfoot just a different kind of foot, right? No, this is somebody that's gone wrong. So again, it's this weird thing where we're seeming to make a completely arbitrary exception to accommodate just a completely political ideology that makes no conceptual sense, has no sign. And it really isn't a scientific argument. That's the thing that other people understand, because, you know, in science, we'll point to these abnormalities like, see, but that's already presupposing a certain philosophical fact. Right. The idea of this is something different versus this is something defective, right? How do you solve that? Well, you solve that, I would argue, by having a particular philosophy, having a particular metaphysics, having a particular philosophical anthropology. Now, I'll say once you have the right understanding, the common sense understanding philosophically,

the scientific evidence greatly supports and favors that hypothesis over its rivals. People have to be careful not to get sucked in by these pseudo-scientific, pseudo-philosophical arguments where people will say, well, what about this? What about that? It proves nothing because the argument is much deeper than that. I'm giving a hasty summary of enormously sort of convoluted issue, but hopefully I'll give people some resources to begin thinking about this clearly because people are obviously deeply confused. But the point is, is having actually studied this, right, it is nonsense. But the reason it's kind of it's gotten old now to answer your question, Mike, is because people can make strong appeals to emotions, right? People can say, look, no, we need to do this because people are being harmed, right? People are being harmed. They're being discriminated against. And if you care about people, then you'll

be on board with this. And if not, you're a bigot, right? And Mike, you know exactly what I'm talking about, right? And that's as effective on pretty that, that works just as much on people in the academy as it does people. And why do you care so much? This biological male wants to call himself a woman and wants to get surgery and take hormones and. Right. And, and obviously, you know, I've got a lot to say about that very bad argument as well. First off in no other circumstance is the compassionate, caring thing to sort of feed into somebody's delusion. It is a delusion, right? It's a mental disorder. we would do is continue to just say, oh, yeah, yeah, you are severely overweight, right? Eat less. Eat less, right? No, what we try to do is help them however we can to reestablish the right sense of the objective facts of the matter, right? Of what is really the case. Now, people push back

and say, well, the transgender stuff isn't as dangerous as like that. But I'll say, minimally, we know through the best sort of- I i mean if you look at the suicide rates exactly there's certainly a danger yeah even post even post interventions and even in cultures that are greatly affirming of this stuff what we see is this is really uh really catastrophic uh for people in terms of of of the lives they live and the suicide rates and all of that. And here's the other thing I want to say. And of course, the counter argument often used for that as well, that if we were all much more accepting of this as individuals and as a society. That's why I brought in cultures where they are much more. No, I know. I'm just saying because that is commonly said that, well, those numbers would be far lower and these people would do far better if.

It's a hypothesis. And that hypothesis, I would argue, has been falsified or at least strongly challenged by the data that we have in other cultures. Right. And this isn't surprising. Right. That's kind of what we would expect to see if this is, in fact, a deeper sort of mental disorder. And the other thing I want to say about this, I'll turn the whole episode onto this topic, but it is an important topic, is we don't have to know what the solution is to know what the solution isn't. is to help people who struggle with this. That's not my specialty, right? I've read about other solutions that seem to be effective, sort of cognitive behavioral techniques and therapy and stuff like that. But we don't have to know what the solution is to know what the solution isn't,

right? And reaffirming, or not even reaffirming, just affirming somebody's mental disorder that isn't true is not the solution. Mutilating people is not the solution. And especially pushing this on kids is not the solution. I don't know what the cure for cancer is, but I can tell you putting a horsehair into a bottle and swirling it around with some apple cider vinegar, I'm willing to fight against that if that's proposed. Even though I don't know what the solution is, I'm pretty confident that isn't it. And in certain instances, proposing false solutions, it is progress to fight against those. Right. Even if we don't yet have exactly what the rights to the solution is. So, yeah, I'm pretty. Yeah, this is one that I think is a great example where there's a clear bully consensus that is formed through various social pressures that comes under the guise of. that is formed through various social pressures that comes under the guise of, right, it's promoted under the guise of some goodness, wanting to reduce harm, but has nothing in support of it, I would say, from an intellectual standpoint.

There's no reason at all to think this is true. And there's every reason that we should be out there combating this and trying to get this ideology just eradicated completely. trying to get this ideology just eradicated completely and what what would you say to people who say well when when somebody says scientism it's it's usually somebody who is trying to discredit a scientific theory they don't like uh often often somebody who's religious. I've heard that one before. It's just a label. It's like, you know, anti-vaxxer or climate denialist. It's meant to just try to shut discussion down. I mean, well, let me say a couple of things, right? So I'm religious. I mean, I used to be an atheist and now I'm religious and I'm a huge fan of science. So let me be clear, right? It's

like nothing that I've said today is meant to disparage the fruitfulness or the productivity or the advancements that science has given us in technology and knowledge, right? It's clearly been enormously successful. What I'm fighting against is just in in overreach in overstepping right particularly in an epistemology or sort of like uh yeah i guess it's turning science into a false religion right and you and understanding that what at this point it is it is very religious yeah it has it has a kind of numinous quality yeah i mean scientists have sort of it's almost it's almost medieval in that yeah they've fulfilled the sort of priestly role in a lot of respects they are they are they are in many ways i think the high priests of our for sure modern

society at least the the non-religious yeah i mean when people have big questions about life there are questions that you know uh are not really scientific questions it is funny to see how they they want to hear the scientists you know answer answer to it right like neil degrasse tyson's answer anyways um so yeah no i say like what the meaning of life is yeah yeah let me just run some experiments and he always sounds goofy as hell when he talks on those things because he's just not really a trained philosopher, at least on those matters like philosophy, religion or something like that. And he strikes people in that field as exceedingly amateurish when he speaks on those, even though he's obviously credentialed in his areas. But it's not necessarily being credentialed or educated in one area doesn't mean you're gonna be um well spoken or accurate or articulate in another you could be but you could also not be right um so yeah to your question i

mean like yeah i mean certainly there's probably people out there uh that do just throw that that label scientism around because they don't like some scientific theory or something like that and i guess you just have to take those those case case. And that's why I've tried to be careful in this conversation to say specifically what scientism is as it's promoted by professional philosophers. Right. So I'll give you an example. There's a professional philosophers named Alex Rosenberg.

He's got a very goofy book, but it's a very good book in a way. I mean, I disagree with almost fundamentally everything in it. And if you, if you read it, you'll see why I say that it's goofy, but it's called The Atheist's Guide to Reality. And Rosenberg is a well-established philosopher, and he is a strong proponent of scientism.

Scientism. And not just an epistemological scientism, but an ontological scientism. So he's going to say at the end of the day that the only things that not just the things that we could know come through science but the only things that exist are what comes through science and for him it's going to be just physics it's just going to be just fundamental physics so he's going to say it's just fermions and books right and this this this so i'm trying to give a fair representation of what the the actual professional thinkers mean by scientists show why that's wrong. How we deal with it on the popular level, I think, comes case by case. And there, of course,

are people who I think take unreasonable positions against certain scientific hypotheses for various, I don't know, reasons, political, religious, or otherwise, I guess we'd have to consider a specific example. But I've just tried to- It might be enough just to acknowledge that there is, let's say, a misuse of even the term uh some people i think they they use it um either ignorantly or they they use it in a disingenuous way for sure um yeah i mean that is just the case on the kind of like i guess social media level in general of course yeah right people are just exceedingly sloppy yeah right right um it's almost it's sometimes just like a gotcha or a comeback, you know? But, but let's, let's wrap up. I have one more question I want to hear your thoughts on.

So for people listening, what, what should their conclusion be? Cause some people, they might be thinking, okay, so then should I just be skeptical of everything? But especially in the realm of science and when somebody says that scientific research indicates one thing or another, what should I categorize certain things where there are certain levels of skepticism that are appropriate given whatever the context is? And there are some things just to start it off. There are some things, for example, let's just start with health and fitness, right? Somebody like me might say, or if somebody like you might say, um, at this point, of course, you don't even have to just rely on the scientific research, but I could say there's a lot of scientific research that shows that, uh, energy balance dictates body weight. And if you want to lose fat, you're going to have to, you're going to have to restrict your, your energy intake. You're going to have to burn more, more burn more energy than you consume consistently over a period of time. And somebody goes, okay, I don't know if that's true or not, but this one's pretty simple

because I would say, just give it a go. Here, here's a little calculator and put in your information. Test it for yourself. You don't have to read a single scientific paper or listen to what anybody, you don't even have to go find counter arguments necessarily if you don't have to read a single scientific paper or, or listen to what anybody, you don't even have to go find counter arguments necessarily. If you don't want to just yet, why don't you just give me seven days? Here's this little calculator, put in your numbers and then make sure you hit those calories and see what happens. Right. And if, if you lose some fat and there are different ways of measuring that, then you can, you can continue on with a high level of certainty that something is fundamentally correct about what I said. And for your purposes, you go, well, maybe it's not the ultimate truth, but it's good enough because now I can just lose fat and move on with my life.

So that's one thing, right? So that's one thing, right? But then there are many other things that are intimately involved in how, or they inform how we live our lives. It's not just, hey, this scientist says that light moves at the speed of, what is it, 300 kilometers a second or whatever. whatever how do i really know that i'm going to go spend all this time investigating no who cares right how is that going to affect how you live your life but but if we take something like should i get a covet injection not that we have to harp on that but that for example is something that uh is is an important decision one way or another. And the many other things that you might look to science or a consensus and say, well, what does the science say?

What does scientific research say on something that, I mean, even take something like happiness, right? I want to be happier what is scientific research yeah i'm just saying right what is yeah that's that's that's a popular yeah i would say have i have i have i made my i'll stop talking if you understand what i'm saying right where you know when when should you be skeptical how do we how how do we nav how do we better navigate reality then should we just ignore science altogether? I would say no. That's one, that is one, a lot of people, that is their solution. They could care less what scientific research says about anything. They're going to go off of anecdotes. They're going to go

off of intuitions. And that's one way of going about it. Is there a better way? and then the opposite of the spectrum is okay i'm gonna take literally whatever the scientific consensus is whatever i can uh get my hands on in terms of scientific research and i'm just gonna i'm i'm i'm not gonna have a single thought uh that that doesn't agree with these consensuses and that's what i'm that to live my life. Let me try and answer it by thinking about flags. I think flags are indicators of situations where I think your skepticism should be raised.

Mike, I have to say, and people can track down our previous conversations, but I have to think whatever method I'm using, it has to be somewhat reliable. I think I've been pretty accurate in my predictions and skepticism over our conversations these past couple of years. And you'll remember I was quite skeptical of lockdowns initially. Remember that? I think we talked about this. And the reason I was skeptical was that there seemed to be a prior strong consensus against lockdowns that was formed in a sort of non-politicized way.

And then we had- Cloth masks? That was another one that was skeptical of. That was another one. I mean, I was as well, and a lot of people argued with me. And now, look at that. The CDC says cloth masks don't do anything. Now it's pretty much universally acknowledged. I would say the best studies, including the Bangladesh study, which if you examine it and the Denmark study, uh, show that, yeah, they just make no meaningful, uh, difference whatsoever. Why was I skeptical of these? Well, first off, there was a sort of

sudden flipping of a prior consensus in a highly politicized environment. That to me is a flag. environment. That to me is a flag. That's a flag, right? It's not certainty that this position is false. But for me, it's like, okay, what's going on here? Why the sudden flipping, right? Like what new evidence just could have come out? And of course, you look at the evidence, it's like exceedingly low quality evidence, just crap, right? And it's like, really, this is what flipped it right in this highly political environment. And just to just to give people an idea, there was now a new article paper that came out in Studies in Applied Economics, the biggest literature review and meta analysis, the effects of lockdowns and COVID-19 mortality. And what what what it shows

is that the meta analysis includes that the lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, though they have had imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. This was something where we were intimidated and shamed. And I was talking about this from the beginning. Look at the great, what was it, Great Barrington, if I'm getting that correctly, declaration? And look at the people who signed on to Barrington. Right. I'm getting that. And that's the thing. Right. So. So look at the people who signed on to that and how much of black they caught. And look at their look at their bona fides.

They were right. Yeah. You had Jay. You had Mark Koldoff. You have people from Harvard, Stanford, all over. Right. So this was another indicator for me is like, clearly, this isn't a consensus. Right. The media is saying something.

But I see. And then you had Twitter fact checkers who they could say that those guys were wrong and that you shouldn't be able to even share their opinion. Wait, what is going on? And then here's the thing. Where are the incentive structures? Like, these guys are speaking out against this, and they have pretty much everything to lose and nothing to gain, really.

Whereas anybody else who kind of hops on the consensus, like, you're going to get all the social political favors. Right. So that is another indicator for me, right. Highly relevant experts speaking out when they have sort of, uh, maybe very little to gain and a lot to lose. That means, okay, something, something must be really pushing these guys here, right. In terms of the evidence. And so that was the reason why, even though I'm not an infectious disease expert, right. I was from a layman's perspective, initially very skeptical of the lockdowns and then decided I need to do actually more research into this and try and get myself up to a level of competence where I can really try to adjudicate this. And I tried to do my due diligence. And the deeper I went into it, the more I saw, yeah, this is really a bozo policy.

It makes predictions as predictions are failing, as the meta analysis has definitively shown. Based on based on wacky models that were that have been wrong, ludicrously false. Right. I mean, it's just ridiculous. So from people who had a history of bad modeling. Right. Yeah. So. Yeah. So I'm trying to answer your question through example of certain flags. No, that's a good example. Yeah. Certain flags and indicators. And one is, are we is there something that sort of sort of highly politicized climate? Right. That's sort of forcing a change in position or the adoption of a new position. forcing a change in position or the adoption of a new position. So to me, seeing- So maybe you have the elements of-

Social and political pressures are big ones. Money and power, money and power, two major- Right, uh-huh. Corrupting influences, which is no surprise, but- Yeah, power, influence, social factors are a big one, right? Just social agendas, social political agendas. Because right, if you're trying to push a social political agenda and the populace sees science as the priestly class, of course, you're going to want

them on your side. Right? Of course, you're going to want the science, right? So like, immediately, like, you just see, okay, there's, there's probably going to be some perverts and status here. Again, doesn't mean it's false. But if that's kind of in the background, for me, that's an indicator that, hey, maybe I shouldn't just be so quick, you know, to just to just take in whatever's being told to me. But then there's, of course, tons of areas of science, right, that are largely free from a lot of that stuff that I think by and large, you're perfectly warranted in accepting unless and until something comes up to give you strong reason to question it. And of course, we do that all the time, right? When I hop onto airplanes and stuff like that, you know, kind of trusting the, the, all the different sciences that, that, that went into that. Right. Um, so yeah, I don't know if that answers your question. And of course, if you look at the, the incentive there, the incentive

is to make it all work and make money. Right. And yeah, the incentive is, yeah, there's a money incentive, but I also know I'm going to make more money with better science just get people killed right type of thing right um right probably not going to do so well as an airline if i'm constantly dumping my passengers into the ocean and stuff like that right but by telling them that that's not what's happening actually yeah so unfortunately unfortunately and this is unfortunate right because as as i think we we kind indicated at the beginning of the episode, it's like we really do need testimony, right? We really do need authority to kind of function epistemologically. So it's really a shame and it does a lot of harm when there's corruption on those lines, right? It does a lot of harm. And we've seen that. And that's something I just want to comment on that I think also should be considered is the track record. Yeah. Has this industry had a sordid history?

Are there a lot of scandals? Yep. Well, I think that's a big red flag. Another indicator, for sure. Yeah. And then or even individual organizations. Has this organization been caught lying, cheating and stealing again and again and again? good reason to be very skeptical of anything that organization says, period. Yep. Period. Not that everything that they say is going to be false, but otherwise I think is to live. I mean, it's minimally you're, you make for a good mark if, if you don't even consider that. Yes. I mean, it's just like, it's some of this is so common sense. It's like, boy, you can cry wolf stuff, you know?

I know, but, but it's, it's, it's, it's not, if you look at it from a, let's say a marketing perspective, right. For people who would ask, well, this is, this would be an uncomfortable way for me to live. Um, I, I recently, I read a book called wired to create and in it, they cited a, it was a Harvard study surveyed a bunch of people. And it was, if I remember correctly, about 80% of people, adults, who were surveyed said that the idea of thinking differently made them feel uncomfortable. Right? Yeah.

And it's hard. And there's some truth in that, right? Sure. truth in that. Right. And so, so for somebody to, to consider, um, living in, in the way that we're describing or, or maybe, uh, tweaking their operating system a little bit, so to speak, and they go, well, this, this would make me uncomfortable. Like now I'm supposed to question so many different things. And, and then, and then, and then, and then not only it's questioning all these different things, it's having to then consider that there are a lot of powerful, influential, rich people who are working against my best interests. And what's in it for me? Yeah, you know, it reminds me of…

Like, think about it as a marketer. How do you sell this mindset to somebody where they go, why? Why should I? I feel comfortable right now. My life's doing... I'm okay. I'm not sick.

I'm not dying. I don't have any problems that are really pushing me to want to question everything. Why should I even do it? What's in it for me? Yeah, well, I guess it depends how much you care about truth. And I think deep down, we all recognize that whatever else we agree, the truth is the truth is something that's really important and that completes us. I guess you have like some

hardcore, uh, maybe pragmatists out there that would try to get around it. I would say deep down that this is something that you can't not know, right? We all sort of, we all do know that truth is important. It sort of perfects and completes us in a way and it's something worth having in and of itself i would say some people though they might say i would rather have comfortable comforting lies than than very disturbing truths yeah they'd rather just live in the matrix right um which we didn't talk about the simulation hypothesis but maybe next time next one yeah i don't think i don't think that's i don't think that's true actually i think they next time. Yeah. I don't think, I don't think that's, I don't think that's true. Actually. I think they might, they might say that.

I don't think they really believe it deep down. I mean, would you rather, would you rather a life, right? There's some famous thought experiments here. This is a good philosophical subject, right? I mean, imagine a guy's name's Bob and he thinks his life is going well, thinks his wife loves him. He thinks his kids respect him. He thinks his business is doing well, thinks his wife loves him. He thinks his kids respect him. He thinks his business is doing well. But actually, in reality, his wife's cheating on him with his business partner. His business partner is stealing all his money.

His kids despise him, right? Would you want to be Bob? I think most of us say, no, I don't want to be Bob, right? I don't want to live the life, even if I believed otherwise than the facts. I don't want a life like that, right? So again, to make it clear though, Bob's, his happiness factor, let's say is currently higher than yours or mine.

He's got a nice brain chemistry, you could say, right? For sure. What I'm saying though is like his experience, his day-to-day experience, he experiences more joy than let's say we do but he's wrong about everything he's living a worse life if he only yeah if he only knew and that's i mean that just gets deep back at the heart of this sort of aristotelian classic greek notion of what a good life is right a good life really is like uh you

know aristotle sometimes is translated using happiness, but I think awesomeness is a better example, right? It's a life of virtue. It's a life of perfection. And defined as like inspiring awe. Yeah. Yeah. It's a light. It's really, you're an excellent instantiation of the type of thing that you were meant to be, right? And you're a rational agent. Part of that excellence means attaining truth, right? Coming to know the way the world really is and other virtues as well. Of course, he's got his famous account of virtue ethics, right? So yeah, you really can't have an overall good life. Everything or most of what you believe is false, at least not according to Aristotle, right? So a good life, a truly truly excellent awesome life is not to be equated with

just a certain brain state or brain chemistry i think that's right i think we all know that's true deep down right and i think that's why most of us wouldn't just hop into the matrix even if we think it could um optimize our brain chemistry because we have this deep intuition we're gonna find out in our lifetime when uh uh, the, the metaverse give them 10 years to work on that. And it'll be, you know, it'll, it'll probably reach the level of, of ready player one, at least in our lifetime where you can basically just go live in this alternate reality. And you're a, you're a superstar superhero,, ubermensch in the metaverse. And you are less than zero in reality.

Your body barely works. And that's basically all you can do is plug into the matrix. Yeah. I mean, there's, I guess, slight differences, right? There will be people who choose that. They will choose it. 100%. There's no question.

They already do. They live in MMORPGs. Right. But they still know they're playing a game, right? There's this other one where you don't know, right? Where you see what I'm saying. There is that point of difference. Wouldn't you say, though, that somebody who they already willingly choose what we're talking about and they know they're playing a game, if you could tell them, them guess what we could set it up so you don't know you're even playing a game how cool would that be

yeah yeah i think so then then i think we're in like have you ever seen the movie vanilla sky with tom cruise no i actually like that one a lot and in many ways i actually like it uh more than the matrix but it's it's the same type of theme and it's you know all this is just borrowing off of classic philosophical thought experiments brain in the vat uh type of stuff even going back all the way uh to descartes and i think again we would all realize that no i'd rather live in the real world maybe i still want to play games and maybe you know and and maybe there's maybe there's even a way i you could do that. I know people. I'm not close. I have known people well who I really, if I had to make a bet, I think they would say, put me in the metaverse.

And what Aristotle would simply say to them is that they're just wrong. People can be wrong about what the good life is. Right. And I would agree with it's a choice though right yeah they can choose that just like people can choose to do any sorts of vicious or moral things but that doesn't change the sort of objective facts of the matter so even if they did choose it yeah an aristotelian would just say yeah you just made the wrong choice right that is that isn't the way to live a good life yeah Yeah. So I forget how that ties into all the other stuff

we were talking about, but it is, uh, I was just posing. I was just posing the question of, uh, trying to bring a lot of these ideas to practical in terms of like, how can this help us make better choices in our life? And, uh, when, when, if we want to include, uh, this, the, the, the method of the scientific method of research, and I've commented on this. I don't know if you've seen this on social media, not to get off on a tangent, but this idea that unless you are a trained scientist, you cannot do research. Anybody who says that they are doing research, they're not actually doing research. And it's a very condescending, like, oh, you read a book, or you read some books, or you read some articles, or you watched a YouTube video. You did not do research. You simply watched YouTube videos and read things. That's cute, right? And I think that's, of course, it's just using semantics to try to put people down.

What's more accurate is there are different types of research and certain types are better than others. That's correct. For sure. Watching a YouTube video is not the same as maybe reading scientific papers on something. Although the YouTube video might just be summaries of scientific papers, but, but the point stands, right. And, um, and so, so including scientific research in, in decision-making is, uh, I think, I think reasonable, but, um, as, as, as you were saying, and as I've been saying, uh, it, it is naive to think that all scientific research is purely objective and that there are no politics, not in the sense of right versus left, but in the sense of the underlying assumptions and principles and aspects that relate to power and status and all the other things. It's naive to think that, um,

that, that there aren't very human problems. Scientists are right. Correct. Yeah. That, that they are, they're, they're not somehow elevated humans or when in their work, they, uh, are completely unbiased and they are 100% willing to scrap all of their beliefs if the evidence, yeah, that sounds nice. You're just not going to meet many scientists. And also understanding that the sciences differ, right, in their methodology and very often the

degrees of confidence that they give us, right? So something like general relativity, we have an enormous degree of confidence in, right? But other sciences are sort of more forensic. They have to reason, make inferences to the best explanation, right? There's always sort of alternative hypotheses that seem to, you know, be explanatorily competitive. And so what we, what science, you know, really gives us are degrees of confidence. Now, in some instances, that might be like a 99.99997%, right, degree of confidence. But yeah, that's not always the case. A lot of times it's a lot, lot lower than that, right? And that's just a realistic and honest understanding of science as a whole, the different disciplines of science. Which means it's OK to be skeptical. Right. I think that probably should be said, because I think many people, they are afraid to speak against the science.

Right. To even express a doubt or to raise questions, it seems like there is a cultural expectation, certainly these days, to just swallow the pieties that are given by the high priests. And if you have questions, it's just because you don't understand things. Yes, you're an ignorant. Yeah, you're just ignorant or you're stupid. And that's the end of it. Where we get like a hundred percent confidence in science is really like when we get that clear counter example, right? Which means when we can throw a theory away, here's a theory, all swans are white. Oh, right. Making lots of great predictions. I'm increasing my confidence.

Oh crap. There's a bunch of black swans, Right. Well, now I have certainty that theory is false. Right. But other than that, it's just, let's say, uh, thorough research on something to go look for those black swans to not assume that, well, I came across five experts who all said the same thing. That's enough for me. Right. And that, I mean, that is a hot debate right now in philosophy of science, right? Like does a theory need to be falsifiable to be a scientific theory? That is not something that all scientists and philosophers agree on. Some say, yes, absolutely. If it's not in principle falsifiable, then it's not a scientific theory. Others are saying, no, we can just rely on inference to the best explanation and other sort of inductive criteria like simplicity and explanatory power, its scope, the degree of ad hocness.

So like even that itself is something that is a much wider and broader debate within philosophy of science that is by no means settled. It's an active debate even today. Final comment, just because I think it's useful on this point of falsifiability, it just reminds me again of some of these conversations I've had with people where I will ask them what would have to happen for them to question that belief or for them to discard it. And many times I don't get an answer to that. About lockdowns in particular and masking and that's just the, the general topic of

discussion these days. Obviously that could be applied to many different things, but it's just, it's just interesting, um, to, to ask somebody who's all in on lockdowns, all in on mandates. Uh, okay. So let's say it's been 10 years, 10 years from now, you're on your 17th booster shot, and you're being told that if you don't get the 18th, that you can't participate in society. We've seen no meaningful change in the curve of it's now an endemic disease, COVID, and it spikes, then it comes down and it's like the flu in that regard. Do you think maybe at that point, your assumptions about the viability of lockdowns and mandates, maybe at that point you start to question or maybe ulterior motives? Let's be generous and just say money. Maybe this money is a factor, billions of dollars in profit being generated. Again, every time it goes

nowhere the most common response i get to that is well i'm i don't need to engage in in conspiratorial thinking or your you know little little uh um conspiratorial thought experiments i just deal in reality and data and science i mean really that's that's that's just called slow the fallacy of slogan here that's what i call it anyways right no what you ask again and maybe this will and reality and data and science. I mean, really. That's just called the fallacy of sloganeering. That's what I call it anyways, right? What you ask again, and maybe this will help tie everything together, right? That's a really important epistemological question, right?

For the things that are important to you, big things, things that matter, things that sort of bear in on your life, at least heavily. Do you have some line? Do you have some threshold where you can say, yeah, if this were crossed, I would change my mind or at least seriously reconsider it?

I think that you should be able to identify that for the things that are really important and that really matter to you, or at least the things that, yeah, again, like heavily. Just the things that guide you in your major decisions in your life what would have to happen for me to either change my mind or at least seriously think that may may be on the wall right and if you can't answer that at least like have

some general idea of where the line is do that do that that's that's really important because because otherwise like you're just not serious right you're just you're just not being serious in life yeah or at least acknowledge that right that we're dealing with this is matt this is now an article of faith not not to say that in a way to attack religion but just just in the dictionary this is this is now more in the realm of uh of of it's really yeah i would even say just like outright superstition right um yeah i i mean even for religion and we've talked about this before like there's clear lines that if they were crossed i'd be like yeah i was i was wrong right yeah i mean like the catholic church

makes certain predictions right and it's it's it's very like you cannot be scientific about it right it predicts from its doctrine of infallibility that this will never happen. Right. So if whatever that is, right, if that happens, I would have to put my hands up and say, yeah, wrong. Kind of give it up. Right. So I've got I've got that even on a level of faith, not even science or anything else. you know, a thicker and more difficult philosophical and theological concept, but at least in that kind of thin understanding, yeah, like even that threshold exists for me on that, on that plane, if you will. So yeah, I think that, I think what you bring up is a really excellent point. It's something that everybody, everybody should think about. Obviously it's not just something you want to just throw at other people, but reflect on it for yourself, right? Here are some like of my core beliefs in my life. Here are things that sort of, they're like my operating program in a way,

what would have to happen, right? What would, what line would have to be crossed for me to start to really question these or, or see, see that I'm wrong. It's a really important reflection. And it's something that in health and fitness, I've, I've changed my mind on, on quite a few things over the years and not, not to, to, I'm not saying that to, to give myself a hug. Um, but it is something that I certainly also try to do in my work. There are many things that I thought going into this were, were probably true that I now would say almost certainly not, or probably not. And that's okay. I like that. Almost certainly, or probably again, degrees of confidence, right? And people would do better to talk like that too. Like, you know, some, some things I'm very confident in other

things, you know, just say like, Hey, here's kind of my working hypothesis. I think it might, I think it might be true, but I honestly am sincerely open to counter evidence. And there's nothing wrong. I think there's a lot right of just talking that way on a number of subjects. People are just way too black and white. I'm certain that it's true. I'm certain that it's false. No, no, no, no.

I think there's something deep in us that doesn't like uncertainty, though. Yeah, it makes us uncomfortable. You're right. Yeah, that's true. But I mean, if we're honest with ourselves yeah there's just there's just a great number of things where it doesn't reach the level of like incorrigible and infallible right it's i i kind of think it's true or i really think it's very highly probable i hope i would like to think it's true like that's okay but i would like if it's true right yeah all those things it's true. That's okay too. I'm agnostic, but I would like to think it's true, right?

Yeah, all those things. It's just a huge, huge spectrum. And just be honest with yourself. I guess that's my last bit of advice there, right? I like it. I like it. Well, this has been fun as always. Why don't we just wrap up quickly

with where people can find you if they want to follow your work. And also if there's anything in particular, if they're still listening, they liked this conversation, they probably would like, for example, your book, How to Think About God, if they are interested in that

or just anything else you want to tell them about. Yeah, working on lots of stuff. I just got a revised and re-spit on an article for a journal. So hopefully that will come out. That's actually on some of the material in that book you mentioned, cosmological reasoning, arguments for, and stuff like that.

But more relevantly, I guess, for podcast listeners, I actually started a new podcast because my other podcast was so generalist. I had so much stuff going on. I decided to break it off and separate the philosophy from fitness content. So the new one's called philosophy. Yeah, because apparently, Mike, you never told me this. You're the social media guy. YouTube hates inconsistency, right? Oh, that I that actually I didn't know.

Yeah, I don't pay attention to YouTube at all. Yeah, people told me that I was killing my own channel because I was so inconsistent in the themes. You know, I do like one fitness episode, one philosophy episode, something completely different. And so I was advised, uh, to start a new channel. So I did send a new one long story short is called philosophy for the people. Uh, I co-host it with my friend, uh, Jim Madden's a professor of philosophy and focuses on philosophy of mine. So people might want to check that out. And my original podcast is the Pat Flynn show very humbly and originally named. And my original podcast is The Pat Flynn Show, very humbly and originally named. And my website is ChroniclesofStrand.com. Awesome. Thanks again, Pat.

Thanks, Mike. Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did, subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com, and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd

like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode, and I hope to hear from you soon.