Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science
blogs.scientificamerican.com
Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science
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Re: Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science
#2Funny, today on the Drudge Report, I read that we've had record cooling in the past 8 months.
http://realclimatescience.com/2016/11/record-global-cooling-...
There's a large online anti-global warming movement that needs to be addressed. Actually, there's an anti-everyhing movement (e.g vaccines). The general public is not going to know who to believe.
Do more people read Drudge or Scientific American?
Re: Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science
#3The impression that schools and media gives of how "science" is being implemented these days is inaccurate enough that I would call it propaganda. The reality is that the research literature is filled with over 90% junk, and a small percent of value, just like everything else.
The funding and publication system is set up to force this junk percentage as high as the public will tolerate, so I do not think this "positive-spin" type of propaganda is a good thing.
Re: Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science
#4Science needs another ally as well - we also need wholesome support of science. Not just pick and choosing to support a particular ideology, liberal or conservative. For some (my friends on the right, whom I understand and have empathy for more than your average HN reader), scientific thought unfortunately has been so closely tied to liberal ideologies that middle America sees as destructive to families and local economies. Additionally, there is growing intolerance for scientists to hold opinions of faith or conservative ideals in our universities. This is unacceptable. (This is a great article on the matter http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confessio...)
In short, we need to stop treating that being "scientific" and "liberal" go hand-in-hand. They don't.
To quote the great Serj Tankian:
Science fails to recognize the single most potent element of human existence
Re: Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science
#5Funny, today on the Drudge Report, I read that we've had record cooling in the past 8 months. http://realclimatescience.com/2016/11/record-global-cooling-... There's a large online anti-global warming movement that needs to be addressed. Actually, there's an anti-everyhing movement (e.g vaccines). The general public is not going to know who to believe. Do more people read Drudge or Scientific American?
What we need not better debate, but better dogma. It shouldn't be necessary to argue that climate change is real every time the topic comes up. Just like we dogmatically accept that cigarettes cause cancer, we should dogmatically accept that climate change is happening and it's caused by us. The science that establishes this fact is far beyond anything that the general public should be expected to understand. I don't understand the first thing about lung cancer, yet it doesn't bother me to accept that cigarettes cause cancer. The general public needs to be comfortable accepting this fact without proof. The world is too complex for everyone to understand every issue.
Re: Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science
#6I heard the incoming Vice President, Mike Pence, does not believe in evolution. In fact there's a video of him, admittedly a long while ago now, making a speech where he seems to not understand what the scientific meaning of "theory" is.
Are people not concerned about this at all? People in high positions ought to know basic things about how science functions, yet as the article points out, barely a word was said about science.
As a European, I think if someone went on a show like Question Time (a UK live debate show) and revealed they didn't believe in evolution, they would be finished in politics. And there would be even more mockery if they said they thought the earth was 6000 years old (though I don't know if Pence believes that).
Re: Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science
#7Funny, today on the Drudge Report, I read that we've had record cooling in the past 8 months. http://realclimatescience.com/2016/11/record-global-cooling-... There's a large online anti-global warming movement that needs to be addressed. Actually, there's an anti-everyhing movement (e.g vaccines). The general public is not going to know who to believe. Do more people read Drudge or Scientific American?
Sadly, you probably already intuitively know the answer.
Scientific American annual circulation[1]: 425,000
Drudge Report monthly unique visitors[2]: 25,000,000
Re: Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science
#8The impression that schools and media gives of how "science" is being implemented these days is inaccurate enough that I would call it propaganda. The reality is that the research literature is filled with over 90% junk, and a small percent of value, just like everything else. The funding and publication system is set up to force this junk percentage as high as the public will tolerate, so I do not think this "positi…
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Re: Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science
#9The impression that schools and media gives of how "science" is being implemented these days is inaccurate enough that I would call it propaganda. The reality is that the research literature is filled with over 90% junk, and a small percent of value, just like everything else. The funding and publication system is set up to force this junk percentage as high as the public will tolerate, so I do not think this "positi…
I think your interpretation of the situation is a bit off. The 90% number, best I can tell, comes from a rather limited meta study which found the papers they tried to replicate had a low repoducablity rate. Note this doesn't immediately make them "junk" just adds another data point in support of the null hypothesis or in some cases points to the existence of confounding factors [0].
Looking at research literature at the single paper level is the realm of pulp science and media puff pieces. In terms of the larger field having a broad corpus to check your results against gives context to an experiment's result and makes it easier to weed out outliers.
It's my opinion that a funding system that ends up with more noise than ideal is still a better state than just giving the reins to the pundits of the world who make conclusions without even pretending to have any experimental foundation.
[0]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2...
Re: Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science
#10The impression that schools and media gives of how "science" is being implemented these days is inaccurate enough that I would call it propaganda. The reality is that the research literature is filled with over 90% junk, and a small percent of value, just like everything else. The funding and publication system is set up to force this junk percentage as high as the public will tolerate, so I do not think this "positi…
> The reality is that the research literature is filled with over 90% jun
Based on what? There is a problem of non-replicated papers - but where exactly are you getting your claim of 9 out of 10 - particularly in high quality journals?