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Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

prospect.org

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Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#21

Post by heavenlyblue »

ud_0 wrote: post #10
blfr wrote: post #4

Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. At least they made it open access. At first I thought they bought out the entire issue so that people couldn't read it.

> Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. I was unfamiliar with that term and googled it: it's described as " excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques ". I'm struggling a bit to understand how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge and techniques equates to a religious mindset. In an ideal world, I would absolutely prefer my government…

I don't know what parent meant exactly, but I personally think that scientific methods are only useful for people who are smart/educated enough to interpret them.

There were so many studies for example about cancer along the lines of "eating apples reduces cancer by 5%" and then you see people start eating apples for this reason. Somebody wrote a paper to get a publication with questionable results and people blindly believe in the power of science.

Don't forget that a lot of the papers are also written in unintelligible scientific jargon and that scientists would massage numbers because their writings directly affects their job prospects and salaries.

Religion didn't necessarily start from being a highly politicised power-hungry beast it became in middle ages. Bible says a lot about being a better human being. So is science - the scientific method does allow us to learn new things; but academia is a political entity which is only going to be growing in it's power and thus corruption.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#22

Post by mclightning »

toxik wrote: post #14
ud_0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. I was unfamiliar with that term and googled it: it's described as " excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques ". I'm struggling a bit to understand how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge and techniques equates to a religious mindset. In an ideal world, I would absolutely prefer my government…

Science is myopic by construction. Science does not consider what questions to answer, but rather tries to answer what can be answered. Science cannot tell you how to run a country or city. It can, at best, tell you how NOT to. Over reliance on science as guidance has also lead to some of the darkest chapters of human history, like phrenology and its use to justify racial supremacy.

Exactly this. Science has too much emphasis on the "now", on present knowledge.

Take 17th century science... most of it would be ludicrous by any standard today. Now imagine applying that science onto humans/society... Science as a tool to deal with present knowledge, should not be used solely to manage societies or human situations with irreversible consequences.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#23

Post by uniqueuid »

shusaku wrote: post #18

> But a Tuesday New York Times article on the subject contained a fascinating nugget midway through, which could be described as a buried lede (journalese for putting the most explosive part of a story in the middle of the piece). I’m going to come down on the opposite side and say that a garbage journal that nobody reads publishing garbage research for money isn’t news. Though it is certainly a good example of why y…

The American Journal of Health Behavior apparently has an impact factor between 1 and 2, which isn't stellar but also isn't "nobody reads".

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#24

Post by Tenoke »

shusaku wrote: post #18

> But a Tuesday New York Times article on the subject contained a fascinating nugget midway through, which could be described as a buried lede (journalese for putting the most explosive part of a story in the middle of the piece). I’m going to come down on the opposite side and say that a garbage journal that nobody reads publishing garbage research for money isn’t news. Though it is certainly a good example of why y…

Yeah, they bought it for $50k. It's like complaining about paying for an issue of some 3rd rate magazine.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#25

Post by goodpoint »

ud_0 wrote: post #10
blfr wrote: post #4

Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. At least they made it open access. At first I thought they bought out the entire issue so that people couldn't read it.

> Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. I was unfamiliar with that term and googled it: it's described as " excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques ". I'm struggling a bit to understand how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge and techniques equates to a religious mindset. In an ideal world, I would absolutely prefer my government…

> how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge

You quoted it yourself: scientism is "excessive", or, more correctly, it treats scientists as authoritative sources of truths that should not be questioned. This form of blind trust goes against the scientific method.

Also scientism can make categorical error in the type of questions that can be answered e.g. journalists asking physicists about "god particles" and such

> I'm struggling a bit to understand how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge and techniques equates to a religious mindset.

I think the poster refers to dogmatic mindset. Assuming that all religions are dogmatic is incorrect.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#26

Post by blfr »

ud_0 wrote: post #10
blfr wrote: post #4

Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. At least they made it open access. At first I thought they bought out the entire issue so that people couldn't read it.

> Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. I was unfamiliar with that term and googled it: it's described as " excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques ". I'm struggling a bit to understand how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge and techniques equates to a religious mindset. In an ideal world, I would absolutely prefer my government…

In an ideal world, maybe. In the real world it means treating a study on 31 American undergrads as scripture (the studies that failed to replicate its result go unpublished), regulation based on a study sponsored by the regulated, or a diet recommendation for half a century based on a hypothesis that saturated fat causes heart disease.

This policy by science simply doesn't seem very effective. It largely provides cover for bureaucrats who can say that they followed science while doing what they wanted to do in the first place.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#27

Post by mrtksn »

ud_0 wrote: post #10
blfr wrote: post #4

Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. At least they made it open access. At first I thought they bought out the entire issue so that people couldn't read it.

> Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. I was unfamiliar with that term and googled it: it's described as " excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques ". I'm struggling a bit to understand how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge and techniques equates to a religious mindset. In an ideal world, I would absolutely prefer my government…

The problematic part is not the belief in science but in the absence of good science relying on or outright exploiting the things that resemble science. With bad science and statistics you can justify pretty much anything. When challenged simply say "Ah sorry, the science says so".

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#28

Post by ud_0 »

wccrawford wrote: post #13
ud_0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. I was unfamiliar with that term and googled it: it's described as " excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques ". I'm struggling a bit to understand how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge and techniques equates to a religious mindset. In an ideal world, I would absolutely prefer my government…

I'm not who you replied to, but I've experienced this with some of my friends. Some people believe in science. They don't take the facts and understand them, they just say "Science says this is true. Anyone who disagrees needs to be shouted down." They will shame people for expressing any doubt against a "scientific consensus". This is actually the opposite of science. For instance, the Theory of Gravity. I know peop…

Thank you for answering. I agree that "scientific consensus" is an elusive thing in practice: interpretations change, new data comes in, sometimes it turns out data was held back or falsified. On top of that, what is consensus and what isn't is often distorted in the public view. There is no established quorum process (which is a good thing).

> For instance, the Theory of Gravity. I know people who take it to be a law, even though science itself hasn't moved it into that category. If you dare to suggest that there might be some as-yet-undiscovered mechanism for gravity

There is no scientific consensus on the mechanism that is causing gravity, at least not on the level you suggest. There is consensus on how gravity behaves, in regimes we can currently observe.

The problem with suggesting "some as-yet-undiscovered mechanism" is that you can generate arbitrary many such mechanisms, because there aren't good options yet for experimental corroboration. We all have favorite ideas for how gravity might work behind the scenes, and it absolutely is fun to speculate. But if your goal is to actually make a contribution, your need to come up with an idea that can be falsified.

In my opinion you are completely within your rights to make claims that contradict empirical findings or theoretical frameworks. There often are holes in our knowledge, and continuously re-examining established science is absolutely part of the process. Of course, the burden of proof is on you in that case. But science is absolutely meant to be a living process.

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#29

Post by xgb84j »

ud_0 wrote: post #10
blfr wrote: post #4

Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. At least they made it open access. At first I thought they bought out the entire issue so that people couldn't read it.

> Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. I was unfamiliar with that term and googled it: it's described as " excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques ". I'm struggling a bit to understand how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge and techniques equates to a religious mindset. In an ideal world, I would absolutely prefer my government…

I think scientism relates to beliefs that equate the current state of scientific knowledge with absolute truth and ignoring unknown unknowns and limits of scientific methods like statistics.

A common fallacy is that "absence of evidence is evidence of absence". For a government this might mean "There is no definite scientific evidence that substance X causes cancer, so we do not ban it.".

Re: Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

#30

Post by uniqueuid »

Tenoke wrote: post #24
shusaku wrote: post #18

> But a Tuesday New York Times article on the subject contained a fascinating nugget midway through, which could be described as a buried lede (journalese for putting the most explosive part of a story in the middle of the piece). I’m going to come down on the opposite side and say that a garbage journal that nobody reads publishing garbage research for money isn’t news. Though it is certainly a good example of why y…

Yeah, they bought it for $50k. It's like complaining about paying for an issue of some 3rd rate magazine.

Okay, but the studies will still end up in meta-analyses and potentially skew results.
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