Author Simon Singh Puts Up a Fight in the War on Science

This cuts both ways. In the States, many people have lost their trust in the integrity of scientific research and the integrity of regulatory bodies. So the CDC might recommend something, or the FDA might approve some drug, and to people that trust these organizations, that's the golden stamp of approval. For others, any such recommendations are inherently suspect.

This goes deeper than education, intelligence, etc, and you can't solve it though more education per se, unless that education addresses the source of the distrust.

In areas where scientific research has been compromised by non-scientific interests, what can you do? Education is no longer education but propaganda, further deepening people's distrust.

Why did Singh have to pay $200,000 of his own money to defend himself? Where was The Guardian in all of this?

Edit: typos.

"I think Simon needs a little more years under his belt (wisdom) and maybe another PhD in history to make him aware of this historically painful fact."

Just out of curiosity (really!), are you older than him / have a degree in history?

I actually agree with most of what you said, it just seems odd to assume he is wrong because he does't have some prerequisites, not just that he might disagree with you (and possibly be right).

Also, I think Simon Singh is actually a pretty good communicator. He's written several books, for laypeople, which talk about advanced science / mathematics. These have been pretty popular, so I think he's actually a counter-example to most scientists who don't do more. I think the article just gives the wrong impression.

I find it's this kind of answers that make scientific explanations so hard.

"Blindly trusting scientists because they're perceived experts, have advanced degrees or are in agreement in large numbers has historically been an unreliable way to judge whether or not something is in fact true."

First of all: if they have an advanced degree in a subject such as medicine than I think they deserve that you drop your hidden insinuations in the adjective "perceived". They studied the topic, they did at least 7 years and maybe more. Other things being equal, isn't that something that matter? Or put it another way: if random "guru" tells me one thing and a scientist the other, I'll probably lean more toward what the scientist said, though I won't feel I am in a position to be sure he is right (but if I had to bet, I'd say he is more likely to be).

Second annoying word was your adverb "blindly". There is nothing blind in following the scientific consensus. The consensus in science is not formed by a group of guys rolling dices. A good scientist is a sceptic, and if many scientist agree that (say) we evolved from monkeys then I think they have a pretty good argument. They are not saying: "trust us because we are the wise men", they say: "trust us because we've done experiments and so far this is our best theory... if you can disprove it, then try".

Third the large number of historical cases you refer to... large numbers? Seriously? Give me a percentage: what are we talking about? 5%? 1%? 0.01%? Sure, science has its up and downs, and sure there are Kuhnian paradigm shifts from time to time. Boltzmann found strong opposition, as did other famous scientist: but those are the exception, not the rule. Just because these exceptions are so rare that they end up known by everyone, doesn't mean that they are in any "large number" what so ever. Again, give me a percentage.

Finally scientist do NOT dismiss all opposing viewpoints because they don't fit a model. Sure, a model that goes completely against 200 years of science will find opposition, but for good reason: that theory had proved itself for so long after all! At the same time when a scientist proves something people seem they can immediately come up with a random objection... which of course the scientist had already accounted for (and then some).

There are a few exceptions. I think most scientist will dismiss anyone who says they built a perpetual machine... but thank God they do. I don't want to think how much scientist time has been lost on a random guy coming up with a wacky model: scientist are not there to prove _your_ theories. If you want you try and prove it yourself! If you do and you can back up your assertions with data, scientist will listen.

One last point. No, being smarter is not enough, but it should mean something. I mean, just look at evolution: scientist may spend a few years to properly show and back up their assertions against one random opposition, and it takes like 1 day for the opposition to slightly modify their model to take into account that. That's not how you do science, and if you feel every scientist has to listen to anyone coming up with any theory and try to spend maybe several hours explaining where it is wrong, and maybe filling up all the holes in their knowledge, then I think you are deeply mistaken. You want that? Then pay for someone to do it: to be a scientist is a job!

Absolutely, and all these bodies that the public no longer trusts should be defunded 200%. Why throw good money after bad? Defund congress, the presidency, economist liars, education bureaucrats, and especially the thieves that make up academia with its 50k a year tuitions and grad student slave labor. But getting back to Singh, he's pretty clearly an idiot on a lot of things. Cars are not the issue, global warming is man made only to the degree pigs can fly and that you believe that a functionaly retarded government buraucrat should randomly assign 20% of your money to various propaganda projects.

Chiropractors are quacks, but regular doctors are even bigger quacks. And least the chiropractors do something mildly positive for your money. Surgeons are ok, but they are very deficient in whole body well being.

I support the right of chiropractors to say that singh is an idiot and that of signh to say they are liars. Both viewpoints are correct and they should argue for 10s of years. The only reason 200k had to be spent was because of the corrupt laws of the fascist government of britain. The parties should have argued without money or lawyers.

Don't trust anyone, and don't let anyone hold your nice money. The sucker MBAs/politicians will rob you blind every time the second you trust them with any amount of money.