Bryan Caplan's Blog, page 101

The Welfare State and Taxes Are Bad, Mmkay, by Bryan Caplan

1. I turned my recent "Libertarianism Against the Welfare State: A Refresher" into a talk for the Cato Institute's spring interns.  Here are the slides. 

2. In honor Tax Day, here's my op-ed of "Tax Day Reflections," rejected by the Wall Street Journal back in 1994 when I was still a Ph.D student at Princeton.

3. Mr. Mackey "Mmkay" montage.

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Biased Behavioral Econ, by Bryan Caplan

Behavioral economists often use their findings to argue for government intervention.  Critics of behavioral economics often accuse its practitioners of a tacit double standard: Human irrationality is a poor argument for government action because officials are human.  Question: Can behavioral economists really neglect such a basic critique of their position?

Yes.  In "Time for a Behavioral Political Economy" (Review of Austrian Economics 2012), Niclas Berggren classifies over 300 papers in behavioral economics.  Does the paper offer any policy recommendation?  If so, does the paper acknowledge that policymakers are subject to the same foibles as everyone else?  Berggren:

The study has two main purposes. The first is to document the prevalence of policy recommendations of a paternalist kind in leading research in behavioral economics. To what extent do researchers draw normative conclusions from the insight that economic actors often behave irrationally? The second is to investigate to what extent those behavioral economists that do offer policy recommendations analyze policymakers in the same way as they analyze economic decision-makers. Are the former also seen as suffering from cognitive imperfections and irrationality, or is it simply assumed that they are without such problems? To the extent that researchers do not apply assumptions about cognitive limitations and biases to policymakers, or motivate why such assumptions are superfluous, it could be argued that policy recommendations are based on an incomplete analysis. If policymakers are irrational just like others, the chances of success for the paternalist project can be put into question.

Results:

Our main findings are that 20.7% of all articles in behavioral economics in the ten journals contain a policy recommendation and that 95.5% of these do not contain any analysis at all of the rationality or cognitive ability of policymakers. In fact, only two of the 67 articles in behavioral economics with a policy recommendation contain an assumption or analysis of policymakers of the same kind as that applied to economic decision-makers. In the remaining 65 articles, policy recommendations are proffered anyway.

What difference does it make?  Berggren's handy flowchart elegantly shows what's at stake:



[Bigger version here.]
My one quibble: What Berggren calls the "behavioral political economy insight" is overstated.  The question is not, "Do politicians and bureaucrats have problems with their decision-making in the form of irrationality, poor self-control, cognitive limitations, etc.?"  The question is, "Are politicians and bureaucrat's problems with their decision-making in the form of irrationality, poor self-control, cognitive limitations, etc. serious enough to make the policies they choose a net harm?"

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Updated Bet Inventory Bleg, by Bryan Caplan

My Complete Bet Inventory is six years out of date. I'm happy to buy lunch for and profusely thank the first person who updates it.

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Inform Me, by Bryan Caplan

During the last five years, I put many of my concerns on hold so I could finish The Case Against Education .  Now that the project is wrapping up, I'm doubling back.  Many of the tasks are non-academic, like refinishing my childhood furniture.  But I also have a list of topics I want - nay, need - to learn more about.  For starters, I'm looking for high-quality systematic evidence-based work on the following:

1. The science of health - including but not limited to the net health effects of alcohol, antihistamines, sunscreen, and indoor air
pollution, and the best ways of preventing diabetes and Lyme disease.

2. The science of diet.  What does the best evidence say about healthy diet?  To what extent are the effects simply mediated through obesity, versus other channels?

3. The science of sleep.  I've always been a bad sleeper: trouble falling asleep when I was young, trouble waking up too early in recent years.  Can science help me?

4. Personal finance.  Is there anything I should know beyond, "Invest in internationally diversified low-cost index funds," "Max out pretax and Roth options," and "Save for college using 529 plans"?

5. College
admission for home-schoolers.  I'm not worried about home-schooling my kids through middle school.  But I'm concerned that colleges will penalize them if they don't attend a traditional high school.  How serious are these penalties, and what if anything can I do to defuse them?

Know something excellent I should read?  Know something well-regarded that's greatly overrated?  Please share in the comments.
 


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School Is to Submit: My Critique, by Bryan Caplan

Robin Hanson and I have long agreed that education is mostly signaling.  But after reading The Case Against Education , my forthcoming book on educational signaling, Robin proposes a bold new theory of what's really going on.  At least on my reading, Robin largely abandons signaling in favor of an enriched version human capital theory.  Indeed, Robin's new story is very much in the spirit of Tyler Cowen's men-into-beasts version of the human capital model, no doubt explaining Tyler's enthusiasm for Robin's innovation.

As you'd expect, I disagree.  While Robin makes some keen observations, he's fundamentally wrong.  Point-by-point, with Robin in blockquotes.

In his upcoming book, The
Case Against Education, my colleague Bryan Caplan argues that school
today, especially at the upper levels, functions mostly to help students signal
intelligence, conscientiousness, and conformity to modern workplace practices.
He says we'd be better off if kids did this via early jobs, but sees us as
having fallen into an unfortunate equilibrium wherein individuals who try that
seem non-conformist. I agree with Bryan that, compared with the theory that
older students mostly go to school to learn useful skills, signaling
better explains the low usefulness of school subjects, low transfer to other tasks,
low retention of what is taught, low interest in learning relative to
credentials, big last-year-of-school gains, and student preferences for
cancelled classes.

So far, so good.

My main problem with
Caplan's story so far (he still has time to change his book) is the fact that
centuries ago most young people did signal their abilities via jobs, and the
school signaling system has slowly displaced that job signaling system.
Pressures to conform to existing practices can't explain this displacement of a
previous practice by a new practice. So why did signaling via school did win
out over signaling via early jobs?

While I don't dwell on history, my book does answer the question, "Why does schooling pass the market test?"  My answer is: "Market test?!  Government showers almost a trillion dollars a year on the status quo, and you call that 'passing the market test'?!"  But why do governments so favor conventional education?  My answer: The politics of Social Desirability Bias.  "Making sure every child has the best possible education" sounds wonderful despite its absurdity.  When individuals spend their own money, of course, they at least ponder whether what sounds wonderful is really worth the cost.  For collective spending, in contrast, Social Desirability Bias reigns supreme.

Like early jobs, school can
have people practice habits that will be useful in jobs, such as showing
up on time, doing what you are told even when that is different from what you
did before, figuring out ambiguous instructions, and accepting being frequently
and publicly ranked relative to similar people.

One factual disagreement: Robin repeatedly claims that schools "publicly" rank students.  But at least in the modern U.S., schools strive to keep students' performance private to protect students' feelings.  Robin can insist that performance isn't "really private," but the fact remains that drawing attention to a student's failure is a serious offense.  Try emailing your class the list of everyone's grades, and you'll see what I mean.

Otherwise, though, I agree with Robin's description.  My book freely admits that school - especially K-12 - provides some socialization benefit.  But I still say: Compared to what?  School provides useful socialization relative to staying home playing videogames.  But not relative to actually doing a job.

But while early jobs threaten
to trip the triggers than make most animals run from domination, schools
try to frame a similar habit practice in more acceptable terms, as more
like copying prestigious people.

There is quite a bit of research on the returns to vocational education and early job experience.  Both are at least as effective at raising future income as traditional education, at least after adjusting for students' pre-existing academic strength.  Robin has my references.

[...]

Schools work best when they
set up an apparently similar process wherein students practice modern
workplaces habits. Start with prestigious teachers, like the researchers who
also teach at leading universities. Have students take several classes at at a
time, so they have no single "boss" who personally benefits from their
following his or her orders. Make class attendance optional, and let students
pick their classes. Have teachers continually give students complex assignments
with new ambiguous instructions, using the excuse of helping students to learn
new things. Have lots of students per teacher, to lower costs, to create
excuses for having students arrive and turn in assignments on time, and to
create social proof that other students accept all of this. Frequently and
publicly rank student performance, using the excuse of helping students to
learn and decide which classes and jobs to take later. And continue the whole
process well into adulthood, so that these habits become deeply ingrained.

This sounds vaguely plausible if you're talking about college.  But it's an outlandish summary of K-12 education.  And if you're trying to understand the historical evolution of  education, K-12 became widespread first, and remains the dominant form of education to this day.

Why "outlandish"?  For starters:

1. In elementary school, students do have a single boss - one teacher they spend almost all their time with.

2. Attendance isn't optional for K-12, and the students have almost no class choices until high school.

3. K-12 teachers give endless busywork: simple assignments with clear-cut instructions, not complex assignments with ambiguous instructions.

4. To repeat, performance rankings are not public.  While it's impossible to preserve total secrecy, schools sincerely try to protect weaker students' privacy to spare their feelings.

When students finally
switch from school to work, most will find work to be similar enough to
transition smoothly. This is especially true for desk professional jobs,
and when bosses avoid giving direct explicit orders. Yes, workers now have
one main boss, and can't as often pick new classes/jobs. But they won't be
publicly ranked and corrected nearly as often as in school...

The opposite is true.  At least in the U.S., schools preach and practice an egalitarian ethos.  No student is entitled to boss other students around merely because he's a "better student."  That's why their group projects are hell on earth.  Employers are much more comfortable publicly ranking workers, and encourage the more-skilled to correct the less-skilled.

[...]

In sum, while students
today may mostly use schools to signal smarts, drive, and conformity, we
need something else to explain how school displaced early work in this
signaling role. One plausible story is that schools habituate students in
modern workplace habits while on the surface looking more like prestigious
forager teachers than like the dominating bosses that all animals are primed to
resist. But this hardly implies that everything today that calls itself a
school is equally effective at producing this benefit.

Let me propose a variant on Robin's story.  Namely: While school is not and never was a good way to acclimate kids to the world of work, it does wrap itself in high-minded rhetoric or "prestige."  "Teaching every child to reach his full potential" sounds far nobler than "Training every child for his probable future."  As a result, making the political case for ample education funding is child's play.  Education's prestigious image in turn cements its focal status role, making academic achievement our society's central signal of conformity. 

But while the problem is vast, it is not deep.  Slash public funding for education, and standard estimates of demand elasticity say that kids will spend many fewer years in school - and many more years learning practical skills on the job.

P.S. Aside: In his build-up, Robin also remarks:

When
firms and managers from rich places try to transplant rich practices to
poor places, giving poor place workers exactly the same equipment,
materials, procedures, etc., one of the main things that goes wrong is
that poor place workers just refuse to do what they are told. They won't
show up for work reliably on time, have many problematic superstitions,
hate direct orders, won't accept tasks and roles that that deviate from
their non-work relative status with co-workers, and won't accept
being told to do tasks differently than they had done them before,
especially when new ways seem harder.

According to the best empirical evidence, multinational corporations are well-managed around the world.  The main problem of development isn't that people in poor places won't individually submit to foreign direction, but that people in poor places won't collectively submit to foreign direction.  "Letting foreigners run our economy" sounds bad, but individuals are happy to swallow their pride for higher wages.  Voters and politicians in LCDs, in contrast, loathe to put a price on pride - and therefore hamstring multinationals in a hundred different destructive ways.

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Ungag Expertise, by Bryan Caplan

Brennan and Jaworski's Markets Without Limits defends the moral principle, "If you may do it for free, you may do it for money."  This is obviously controversial for sex, organs, and adoption.  But speech?  Doesn't the First Amendment ensure freedom of speech - including the freedom to make money with speech?  The U.S. legal system's answer, surprisingly, is no.  Timothy Sandefur explains in the best piece I've read on Constitutional law since... well, I actually can't remember a better piece on Constitutional law.  Here's Sandefur, in the latest issue of Regulation:

The Supreme Court has also made clear that one of the bedrock protections afforded by the First Amendment is its longstanding prohibition on "prior restraints"... Courts presume that any law requiring such prior approval--whether it be a licensing requirement to publish a newspaper, or even a zoning permit to operate a strip club--is unconstitutional until proven otherwise. The government bears the burden of showing that any such restriction is truly necessary to serve the public good. This is the legal test called "strict scrutiny." Yet one class of speech has been almost entirely ignored by the courts: speech by professionals engaged in their business. Although the courts have often discussed the protections afforded "commercial speech"--i.e., advertising--it has virtually never addressed the degree to which the Constitution protects the rights of doctors, lawyers, stock brokers, and others to speak as part of their jobs--even when their occupations consist entirely of speaking and writing. As a result, federal, state, and local governments today impose an array of limits on those professionals' freedom--limits that would never be tolerated if applied to any other kind of expression.

The heart of modern doctrine:

Most courts today hold that while the government may not limit speech by ordinary citizens except in the rarest circumstances, it has virtually limitless power to censor professionals speaking in their field, without regard for the professionals' knowledge and training. While a state could not pass a law barring a layman from telling his friend to take an aspirin for his headache, it could, if it wished, impose a criminal punishment on a doctor who advises the same person to take the same pill.

"Talking professions" are especially vulnerable:

Under professional speech theory, even businesses that consist entirely of speech have been deemed "conduct" and stripped of constitutional protection. The most noteworthy example is psychology, a business that--unlike psychiatry-- involves no medicines, but only speech and other forms of communicative therapies. Although no state licensed psychologists until the 1940s, every state today requires them to get some form of government certificate before practicing the profession. When a group of therapists challenged California's licensing law in 2000, the Ninth Circuit upheld it, citing Jackson's and White's opinions for the proposition that psychotherapy is conduct, "not speech." Thus, "although some speech interest may be implicated," California's licensing  requirement was "a valid exercise of its police power to protect the health and safety of its citizens and does not offend the First Amendment."

Yet the effort to distinguish speech from conduct breaks down when one examines the legal definition of psychology. California defines psychology as the use of "psychological principles, methods, and procedures of understanding, predicting, and influencing behavior," which include the "prevention, treatment, and amelioration of psychological problems and emotional and mental disorders," as well as any effort to help a person "modify feelings, conditions, attitudes," or change "behavior[s] which are emotionally, intellectually, or socially ineffectual or maladjustive," or even just to "acquire greater human effectiveness." Whatever that last phrase might mean, it is clear that this is a list of different types of speech. If applied literally, the law would forbid an incalculable number of personal interactions: talking with a friend about her feelings, texting a classmate about how to get a date, taking one's sister to dinner to lessen her job-related stress, or even praying together about a moral dilemma.

Now it gets weird and fun:

Sensing this problem, California lawmakers sought to exempt such acts by adding a list of exceptions: clergymen, hypnotists, social workers, and even dentists, optometrists, and lawyers--who receive no training in psychology whatsoever--need not get licenses. Also exempt is anyone who engages in psychology for free.

These exceptions are common sense, but they also contradict the case for requiring licensure. If, as the Ninth Circuit held, "the adverse effects of incompetent psychotherapy could include sexual activity between a client and therapist, deteriorating mental health, family, job, and relationships of the patient, and even suicide," there is no sense in excusing priests, dentists, or attorneys from the requirement, let alone exempting anyone who engages in psychology for free. Bad advice or a lack of sympathy from an acquaintance is just as likely to cause the same harms. Had the court regarded the psychologist licensing requirement as a restriction on speech, this extraordinarily broad and self-contradictory prohibition would have been ruled unconstitutional. But because psychologists offer personalized advice--or, in Justice White's words, take patients' affairs personally in hand--the court regarded it as a restriction on conduct, subject only to the
lax "rational basis" test.

The law's not just silly; it fights the future:

These confusions are not just puzzles for constitutional lawyers: they present a set of increasingly difficult problems for one of the fastest-growing sectors of the American economy: telecommunications- based businesses. Blogs and smart-phone apps often convey information for a fee, helping consumers get information and advice, and to buy and sell products or services. These activities consist entirely of communication, but government often classifies them as conduct, subject to restriction. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the growing field of "telemedicine." Telemedicine--the use of communications technology to link patients with doctors or computer programs that can assess their conditions and prescribe treatment--holds great promise for patients who find it difficult to meet in person with a doctor or cannot afford frequent hospital visits. Some new smart phone apps enable patients to contact doctors across the country to ask questions by text message in real time. Other apps help diabetics track their glucose levels. Still others tell users when to apply more sunscreen. Telemedicine goes beyond merely providing information, like books or Google searches: patients can have their specific needs assessed and get personalized advice. This often runs afoul of state laws forbidding the unlicensed practice of medicine.

No state is more rigidly opposed to telemedical innovations than Texas, which according to the 2015 report of the American Telemedicine Association imposes the nation's most stringent limits on remote medical practice. Notwithstanding the fact that the state has a doctor shortage--27 of its counties have no primary-care physicians at all, and 16 counties have only one--Texas medical regulators imposed a rule in April that prohibits
doctors from establishing a doctor-patient relationship by telephone, email, or text-message, meaning that a doctor must examine a patient in person before providing advice or prescriptions-- thereby eliminating the great advantage of telemedicine.

Many of the state's doctors objected to the rule, echoing the words of retired U.S. senator (and doctor) Bill Frist, who asked in a March 2015 Forbes column why a doctor who has visited with a patient for 15 minutes is automatically considered qualified, while a doctor with a long-lasting telephonic relationship with a patient is not. "The idea of separating the visit and the exam from care is a fundamental reversal of what we learn," Frist wrote. "But we must remember that telemedicine is not the practice of medicine, but a tool for the delivery of care. And it's a tool with a proven track record and support in the medical community." But as is often the case with licensing regulations, the rules are often used, not to protect patients, but to protect doctors from having to compete economically.

Thank God professing somehow counts as speech rather than conduct!  Otherwise I'd be in big trouble.

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Naik on Credentialism and Immigration, by Bryan Caplan

Occupational licensing is bad, but doesn't explain the financial rewards of seemingly useless education.  Except, Vipul Naik points out, for foreign workers.  Here's Vipul, reprinted with his permission:

I think Bryan
is broadly correct that government regulations in United States
employment law do not explain the importance that employers give to
educational credentials in the labor market. However, for foreign-born
seeking employment in the US labor market, it seems like educational
credentials are given strong preferential treatment in official US
immigration law.

To take the example of the H-1B law:

(1)
People with masters degrees from US universities are eligible for 20,000
cap-exempt slots per year for the H-1B quota (for Form I-129). So
having a masters degree from a US university significantly increases
your chances of getting the visa, since you are less likely to need to
play the lottery.

(2) People with masters degrees (not
necessarily from US universities) are exempt from additional
attestations (about displacement of US workers) on the H-1B LCA that
apply to H-1B-dependent employers and willful violators.

(3)
Having a bachelor's degree is not a strict requirement for getting a
H-1B; work equivalency can be used in lieu of educational degrees. But
the work equivalency criterion is skewed against work: you need 2 or 3
years of work experience to make up for 1 year of education.

(4)
Nonprofit research institutions are exempt from the annual H-1B caps and
also from some parts of the H-1B fees. Therefore, universities and
research centers find it much easier to hire postdocs, assistant
professors etc. on H-1B than private firms.

Other examples of
laws favoring educational credentials: EB-1 and O-1 visas are easier to
get based on academic accomplishment (papers, etc.) than based on
comparable accomplishment in the non-academic world (this is a
subjective assessment). Also, options like Academic Training (for J
status holders) and Optional Practical Training/Curricular Practical
Training (for F and M status holders) are only available to people after
they have spent some time studying in a US educational institutions.

While employers probably are naturally more inclined to hire people who
are studying in US universities, and therefore people have an incentive
to go to US universities in order to place with companies, I think
these laws further bolster credentialism. In particular, I think the
effect of these laws is clearest on Masters degrees, where applicants
often pay a significant share of their tuition (Ph.D. applicants
generally choose the US more because of the quality of the research at
universities, though the potential for a better labor market is probably
a contributing factor).

Thoughts?

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Approaching Infinity by Michael Huemer, by Bryan Caplan

My favorite philosopher has just published a new book on metaphysics and philosophy of mathematics, entitled Approaching Infinity . 



While I have little intrinsic interest in infinity, I can't imagine a better book on the topic.  I devoured the whole thing this weekend.  Mike begins by cataloging six forms of "infinite regress" and seventeen puzzles about infinity.  He then carefully reviews and critiques earlier theories of infinity, from ancient Greek philosophy to modern set theory.   (If you suffered through set theory in Ph.D. microeconomics, you'll especially enjoy the latter discussion).  Finally, he presents his own theory of infinity, beginning with the key distinction between logical impossibility and metaphysical impossibility.  Then he uses it to distinguish "virtuous" from "vicious" infinite regresses, and solve his seventeen puzzles.

My favorite part of the book: Mike's reply to the "anti-foundational" view that our beliefs can be justified through an infinite series of reasons rather than resting on foundational premises.  Mike:

Perhaps there could be a being with an infinite series of reasons for one of its beliefs; perhaps not.  Be that as it may, it is extremely implausible that humans are such beings.  Even among those few philosophers who defend the possibility of an infinite series of reasons, none has provided any examples to show how such a series would go.

In fairness, publisher-imposed length limits prevent a philosopher from stating an infinitely long argument.  If, however, someone were to state even the first fifty steps in the infinitely long chain of reasons that justifies the proposition [I exist], this would go a long way toward convincing me that there might be such an infinite claim.  No one has done anything like that; indeed, no one seems able to provide even the first ten steps.

This extreme implausibility applies to most (perhaps all) other infinite regresses that involve human beings.  For instance, suppose one held that in order for any choice to be truly free, the agent must freely choose the motives for which the original choice was made.  This leads to an infinite regress of choices, and whether or not it is metaphysically possible, it is extremely implausible that any human being ever performs such an infinite series of choices.

I doubt I'll ever read another book steeped in the philosophy of mathematics.  But Mike is such a singular intellect I'm grateful to read his thoughts about anything.  If you're going to read one book about infinity, choose Approaching Infinity.

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Vietnam War Draft Resistance: Huemer Worked, by Bryan Caplan

In high school, I foolishly registered for the draft.  I had already arrived at the Huemerian theory of civil disobedience, according to which it is morally permissible to break unjust laws and evade the punishment for doing so.  Since I had no doubt that military slavery was unjust, the crucial question was merely one of prudence: Do the benefits of breaking the unjust law exceed the expected punishment for doing so?  I only registered because I greatly overestimate the federal government's eagerness to enforce the law: No one has been prosecuted for draft evasion since 1986.

Question: What about evading the draft during the Vietnam War?  Would a prudent Huemerian have evaded involuntary military servitude then? 

First, consider the risks of compliance.  About 2.7M Americans served in Vietnam, and roughly 58,000 died there.  That's roughly a 2% fatality rate. 

Second, consider the risks of conviction for draft evasion.  During the entire Vietnam War era, about 206,000 Americans were reported delinquent by the Justice Department to the Selective Service.  Under 9000 were convicted.  It's hard to tell what fraction of the delinquent were ever reported, but even if it were 100%, that's only a 4% conviction rate.  The typical sentence was around five years - that's what Muhammad Ali got.

As an upper bound, then, a non-compliant man was twice as likely to go to jail as a compliant man was to be killed.  Morally, you may disagree with my assessment of draft evasion.  But prudentially, it was a no-brainer: Violent death is clearly more than twice as bad as a five-year jail sentence. 

Happily, it's hard to imagine the modern U.S. reinstating the draft, and as I said, the law hasn't been enforced for decades.  If a draft ever does come back, however, legal avoidance (as opposed to illegal evasion) will be much harder than the last time around.  As the Selective Service Administration explains:

Before Congress reformed the draft in
1971, a man could qualify for a student deferment if he could show he
was a full-time student making satisfactory progress in virtually any
field of study. He could continue to go to school and be deferred from
service until he was too old to be drafted.

Under the current draft law, a college
student can have his induction postponed only until the end of the
current semester. A senior can be postponed until the end of the full
academic year.

What should you do?  As always: Learn the facts, then do the right thing.

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Does Science Need Common Sense? , by Bryan Caplan

Does science need philosophy?  Jason Brennan incisively critiques philosophers' case for the affirmation.  How the "gotcha" works:

A: "Science doesn't need philosophy! Science gets by on its own."

B: "How do you know that the universe is uniform? How do you know that
the scientific laws won't just change tomorrow for no reason? How do you
know that just because past electrons have all behaved one way that
future electrons will behave the same way? How do you know that your
experiments aren't modifying the behavior of the things you observe in
such a way that makes your conclusions irrelevant for predicting outside
behavior? How do you know..."

A: "Well..."

B: "And you're doing philosophy!"

Gotcha! Call this kind of argument the "gotcha!" argument. You ask a
person who is skeptical of the value of philosophy a question about
science, and she responds by doing philosophy. So, therefore, isn't
philosophy valuable?

What's wrong with the argument:

The problem, though, is that the conversation could continue as follows:

B: "Ok, you got me. Those are interesting questions and science
itself doesn't really answer them. So, do philosophers have good answers
to these questions? Have they solved these problems?"

A: "Well...no, not really. I mean, I think my latest article in Synthese
helps, but basically everyone disagrees with me, and pretty much every
possible answer to these questions has really good arguments for it and
really good arguments against it. Not only do we lack any consensus in
philosophy on the interesting questions, but, if I'm honest with myself,
it's entirely reasonable for us to lack consensus, because none of the
work is compelling enough to deserve widespread acceptance."

B: "Great. I'm going to go back to doing science and just ignoring you.
Maybe let us know if you manage to settle anything in the next 2500
years."

A:

Reading Jason made me realize that a parallel "gotcha" does work.  Only this time, it's not philosophy mounting the offensive, but common sense.  Here's my revised dialogue:

A: "Science doesn't need common sense! Science gets by on its own."

B: "How do you know that the universe is uniform? How do you know that
the scientific laws won't just change tomorrow for no reason? How do you
know that just because past electrons have all behaved one way that
future electrons will behave the same way? How do you know that your
experiments aren't modifying the behavior of the things you observe in
such a way that makes your conclusions irrelevant for predicting outside
behavior? How do you know..."

A: "Well..."
B: "And you're relying on common sense!"
B: "Ok, you got me. Those are interesting questions and science
itself doesn't really answer them. So, does common sense have good answers
to these questions? Have they solved these problems?"

A: "Basically.  Common sense affirms all the assumptions science takes for granted: The uniformity of nature.  The stability of causal laws over time.  The existence of the physical world, the validity of sense perception, the reliability of human reason, and so on."
B: "But what about all the common-sense claims science has refuted?"

A: "Science only achieves this by using more fundamental common-sense claims to undermine less fundamental common-sense claims.  For example, the validity of sense perception is a more fundamental common-sense principle than the apparent flatness of the Earth.  So when observations show the Earth is round, the common-sense response is to change our mind about the shape of the Earth, not the validity of the senses.  The same goes for, say, special relativity.  It's weird, but it's what our eyes tell us when we scrupulously measure."
B:

More here, here, and here.

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