Politicizing science will make science less scientific and more political. It will not work the other way.
“When you mix politics and science, you get politics.”
— John M. Barry
Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever
21–30 of 211 posts
Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever
#22> An engaged and well-informed public has always been the foundation of our democracy Is there even a shred of scientific evidence to support this hypothesis? I see it in print so often that it appears to be a axiom that is considered so correct as to be unquestionable.
I agree. In my lifetime I have never known the average person to be engaged, nor informed. I think they're mostly mis-informed for the past 10+ years. People just believe whatever outlandish title comes across their facebook feed. I had about 12 people ask me if I heard the news--that wayfair was selling missing children on their website, disguised as fancy cabinets. It took me about 12 seconds to find out it was a t…
I made the terrible mistake of trying to convince someone out of this insane view only to remember the old quote, "You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into".
Maybe we should just devote the entirety of a school year to basic rationalism and logic...
Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever
#23I've seen the term 'evidence-based policy' pop up all over the place. I take issue with people who use this phrase because most of the time their definition of evidence is not very well developed, and when the evidence is something they don't like they start to stretch their definition of evidence so they can dismiss implementing a certain policy. If evidence is only restricted to, and dictated by, academic papers, y…
If you only make decisions based on science you can pretend problems aren't real without a scientist's approval, and you can pretend solutions to those problems are bad if there is even a tiny bit of counter-evidence that supports your viewpoint. And if you make decisions based on anything other than science, is the final outcome going to be any better? I admit that something that we might call "misuse of science" is…
We certainly shouldn't de-emphasize the importance of science. While not all scientific studies are correct, if someone makes a habit of saying "bah who cares what scientists think", they're gonna make bad decisions.
But it's important to keep in mind that science is usually a tool to inform decisions, not a verdict to decide them. I see a lot of people declare we have to implement suchandsuch policy because that's what the science says, and almost all of them are adding implicit assumptions about values and goals to the studies they cite.
Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever
#24Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever
#25I've seen the term 'evidence-based policy' pop up all over the place. I take issue with people who use this phrase because most of the time their definition of evidence is not very well developed, and when the evidence is something they don't like they start to stretch their definition of evidence so they can dismiss implementing a certain policy. If evidence is only restricted to, and dictated by, academic papers, y…
If you only make decisions based on science you can pretend problems aren't real without a scientist's approval, and you can pretend solutions to those problems are bad if there is even a tiny bit of counter-evidence that supports your viewpoint. And if you make decisions based on anything other than science, is the final outcome going to be any better? I admit that something that we might call "misuse of science" is…
It depends on what you mean by "science."
Science has become so political and subject to hype and fads, at least in biomedicine, that everyone should be deeply skeptical of every claim that is made. That doesn't mean that you should distrust everything completely, just that critical skepticism should be the norm.
If by "science" you mean that "rigorous, logical empirical study" should be part of the decision-making, yes, I agree.
If by "science" you mean that the statements of scientists with prestigious academic appointments should be given priority over other considerations, I say no. Outsider criticism should be welcome, and I think nonscientific considerations are sometimes required.
One of the reasons society is in the mess it is in (at least in the US) is because of a failure to realize that certain segments, like the biomedical-scientific community, are just as driven by human failures as any other.
Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever
#26> An engaged and well-informed public has always been the foundation of our democracy Is there even a shred of scientific evidence to support this hypothesis? I see it in print so often that it appears to be a axiom that is considered so correct as to be unquestionable.
Democracy has never really relied on people being well-informed. The "wisdom of crowds" incorporates a lot of ignorance. It just assumes that ignorance is random, while informed opinion will tend to have a bias in favor of reality. If 49% of the people make a random guess one way, and 49% of people make a random guess the other way, then 2% of people who actually know something will put the best-informed answer over the top.
So democracy is robust against ordinary ignorance. It's just not robust against deliberately-induced ignorance[1]. The nudge towards reality is easily overwhelmed by a thumb on the scale of the wrong answer.
Ignorance has never been really random, but the press of misinformation is more widespread than ever. As is the press of information, but when people don't know which to choose, misinformation is often more attractive.
Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. In my lifetime I have never known the average person to be engaged, nor informed. I think they're mostly mis-informed for the past 10+ years. People just believe whatever outlandish title comes across their facebook feed. I had about 12 people ask me if I heard the news--that wayfair was selling missing children on their website, disguised as fancy cabinets. It took me about 12 seconds to find out it was a t…
I made the terrible mistake of trying to convince someone out of this insane view only to remember the old quote, "You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into". Maybe we should just devote the entirety of a school year to basic rationalism and logic...
If we start now, that will start to make a difference in a couple of decades. What do we do until then?
Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever
#28> An engaged and well-informed public has always been the foundation of our democracy Is there even a shred of scientific evidence to support this hypothesis? I see it in print so often that it appears to be a axiom that is considered so correct as to be unquestionable.
>> well-informed public has always been the foundation of our democracy
I'd say maybe a well-informed electorate. Until very recently, the majority of "the public" wasn't allowed to vote and so had very limited input into "our democracy".
Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever
#29> An engaged and well-informed public has always been the foundation of our democracy Is there even a shred of scientific evidence to support this hypothesis? I see it in print so often that it appears to be a axiom that is considered so correct as to be unquestionable.
Democracy has never really relied on people being well-informed. The "wisdom of crowds" incorporates a lot of ignorance. It just assumes that ignorance is random, while informed opinion will tend to have a bias in favor of reality. If 49% of the people make a random guess one way, and 49% of people make a random guess the other way, then 2% of people who actually know something will put the best-informed answer over…
Huh, never thought about the math like that. It makes a lot of sense, thanks for sharing.
P.S. Before the age of social media, was there not the same level of risk of induced ignorance through traditional media campaigns and propaganda? If not, why not?
Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever
#30Politicizing science will make science less scientific and more political. It will not work the other way.
“When you mix politics and science, you get politics.” — John M. Barry from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Influenza
As far as I can tell, that quote does not appear in the cited book.
https://books.google.com/books?id=BYsW6qTP0pMC&printsec=fron...
A nearly identical quote appears in this editorial by the same author:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/opinion/coronavirus-shutd...