Is It Science?

Is It Cake? is a Netflix show in which contestants must determine whether things on display are cake or not. The show has been described as “mindlessly brilliant.” The drama, such as it is, derives from the fact that it’s surprisingly hard, from a distance, to determine if the objects on display are cake or not. That, and the fact that host Mikey Day – who comes across as slightly possessed – reveals the answer by stabbing the objects with a knife.

Mikey Day on Is It Cake?

We could imagine an analogous show, in which contestants were shown bits and pieces of purported science and asked “Is it science?” Without being immersed in the discipline on display, would you be able to tell whether it’s science or not? Would anyone?

Many people are fully convinced that they can – even from a distance.

Economics is routinely dismissed by outsiders with what appears to be a superficial command of the material. Now that Nobel season is approaching, expect to see op-ed pieces (like this one) by non-economists arguing that economics is not a real science, the Economics Prize is not a real Nobel, and that economists are more like priests than scientists.

Nor is economics unique. Disciplines from evolutionary biology through climate science to gender studies get the same treatment, although from different quarters and for different reasons.

A neurological exam is as though a 4-y.o. were asked to reinvent medicine from scratch.

Some politicians think mere project titles give them enough to go on. Representative Lamar Smith from Texas, as chairman of the Science, Space and Technology Committee, led the effort to cut social-science funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF). He lists the titles of funded programs: “Ancient Icelandic textile industry,” “Eco consequences of early human-set fires in New Zealand,” “History of Chiapas, Mexico (350 BC-1350 AD),” and so on, apparently under the impression that mere project titles allow him (and his constituents) to infer that the project in question either is not science or will have no benefit. (Since these were NSF-funded projects, they had already passed an incredibly thorough and demanding process of peer review.)

Anyway, the people who think they can determine if something science or not from a distance, as it were, are wrong.

I know of no better counterexample than neurology. If you get examined by a neurologist, here are some things that they might say: “Do you know what day it is?” “Look at my finger.” “Stand on one leg.” “Can you tell if my fingers are wiggling right now?” “Let me hit your knee with my little hammer.” “Let me drag a blunt object across the sole of your feet.” And my favorite: “Close your eyes and alternate touching your nose and stretching your arm.”

If you didn’t already know that these sorts of questions are part of a standard neurological exam, there is no way you’d think you were subjected to modern medicine. In an era of big data and ubiquitous AI, some of the brightest minds of their generation are standing everywhere from public hospitals to boutique clinics asking you to balance on one foot and wave your arms around.

My point is that it’s surprisingly hard to determine from afar whether something is science or not.

A neurological exam is as though a 4-year-old were asked to reinvent medicine from scratch. Or let me revise that, for fear of insulting the category of 4-year-olds, most of whom could probably produce a more convincing and creative imitation of modern medicine on the fly. A neurological exam is the sort of thing a first-generation Large Language Model might come up with if trained on a corpus from LinkedIn and Donald Duck.

This is not a critique of neurological exams. My point is just that it’s surprisingly hard to determine from afar whether something is science or not. If you’re not yourself immersed in the discipline in question, you’re probably not in a position to say.

To be clear, there’s a lot within these disciplines that could helpfully be contested. It’s just that to helpfully contest a piece of economics, evolutionary theory, or gender studies requires a great deal of practical and theoretical knowledge about the discipline.

Think about how presumptuous one would have to be to dismiss the entire specialty of neurology based on the apparently childish tests they employ. That’s what many outsider critics of economics, evolutionary theory, climate science, etc. look like. It’s not a good look.