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Any science that doesn't agree with our narrative ain't science.

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Original Question

I would like to know the logic of the title statement. What sort of argument is it?  

Answers

3

It's the fallacy of opposition
The truth claim is "You are not science" and the justification is  "because you don't agree with us", not because I managed to expose your non-scientific methods.   

It is usually expressed as a form of hedging.  What you are trying to do is pass of your claim as science, so as to throw the intellectual authority of science behind your claim and to do that you must destroy contrary scientific output. 


To begin with, in order for science to have anything at all to say about your claim, it must make scientifically testable predictions.  Your hope was that the predictions made by your claim would be proven, thus given your claim the backing of scientific authority, but unfortunately for you science instead tore it apart.


So what you now do is deny your claim made any such testable predictions in the first place without actually admitting to changing the nature of your claim, aka hedging.  Without testable predictions, there is no scientific answer.

It is not an argument; but a claim or opinion . It is tempting to say that they are factually incorrect as well, but we cannot know that unless we know their "narrative." Narratives are not the same as science, and there can be quite a bit of ambiguity in what exactly it means for a narrative to agree with science.


A good example with COVID. Two competing narratives might be to "open up schools" and "keep schools closed." Advocates of both can claim that "science" is on their side, but they would both be wrong. Science informs policy; it doesn't support it*. This is a common misconception that stems from the is/ought problem. Science tells us what is, not what ought to be— which is what most narratives attempt to do. Even if science can tell us that if schools are open, there is a 95% chance that 1/2 of the children will die, "science" doesn't support or "agree" with the narrative that schools should be closed. We need to add in the goals. In this case, the goal of the child's well-being (and what that means, exactly). These goals are usually controversial.


* Having said that, science can support an argument , given that one of the premises requires a scientific fact. Consider the following inductive argument.


P1. An allowable ratio of child deaths by COVID due to schools being open is 1 out of 1 million students or less.


P2. Through scientific methodology, we have found with 95% confidence that 50% of students will die if schools are reopened.


C. Therefore, science supports the narrative that schools should remain closed.


Without the "ought" or value judgment in premise one, the science only supports claims of what is . Policy contains "oughts" by definition, as do most narratives (but not definitionally).


In conclusion, the claim "Any science that doesn't agree with our narrative ain't science," is vague and not helpful.

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