Why I Hate Science
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Why I Hate Science
1–10 of 41 posts
Re: Why I Hate Science
#2He's got a good point. The layman doesn't know the difference at all. Heck, most of the 'experts' don't seem to be able to tell the difference. You constantly hear how X is bad for you according to a new study, and people repeat it like gospel, instead of the theory that it is. Often it hasn't even been reproduced yet.
Re: Why I Hate Science
#3Not entirely wrong, but some criticisms:
- overconfidence: scientists are much better at saying "this is a hypothesis we are testing", "we are 80% confident" or "not all of my colleagues agree with this thesis" than science journalists are at reporting those things.
- is anthropology a science now? This was just the field that was most clearly misclassified, but - I'd say - not the only one.
- things can be true without resulting in new cell phones. Facts can be relevant even if they are too hard to properly explain to a layman in five minutes. People really can be stupid and uninterested.
- it's possible to declare some fields completely broken/politicized without jettisoning all of "science". (For instance, the study of economic policy seems to produce really fervent advocates of rather different points of view.)
[Full disclosure: I'm doing a PhD, and rather like science.]
Re: Why I Hate Science
#4Part of his rant is about things that are generally not considered to be "science". Economics is usually categorized separately as "social science" (look! Wikipedia agrees! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics). It's ironic that someone who "no beg[s], scientists to adopt much stricter standards of disseminating information" is so cavalier about lumping together very different fields of study.
This appears to be written by someone that doesn't have a background in what I think most people would identify as "science". I don't think the authors in the current issue of Nature (http://www.nature.com/nature/current_issue.html) would understand the opening sentence of the closing paragraph: "If scientists want to be considered in the same boat as the guys who think aliens built the pyramids, then fine, they should keep going the way they are going.".
Re: Why I Hate Science
#5Not entirely wrong, but some criticisms: - overconfidence: scientists are much better at saying "this is a hypothesis we are testing", "we are 80% confident" or "not all of my colleagues agree with this thesis" than science journalists are at reporting those things. - is anthropology a science now? This was just the field that was most clearly misclassified, but - I'd say - not the only one. - things can be true with…
it's possible to declare some fields completely broken/politicized without jettisoning all of "science"
Exactly.
Re: Why I Hate Science
#6He's got a good point. The layman doesn't know the difference at all. Heck, most of the 'experts' don't seem to be able to tell the difference. You constantly hear how X is bad for you according to a new study, and people repeat it like gospel, instead of the theory that it is. Often it hasn't even been reproduced yet.
What point is that? Lumping unrelated fields together and disliking them all? What alternative does he offer?
Re: Why I Hate Science
#7Part of his rant is about things that are generally not considered to be "science". Economics is usually categorized separately as "social science" (look! Wikipedia agrees! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics ). It's ironic that someone who "no beg[s], scientists to adopt much stricter standards of disseminating information" is so cavalier about lumping together very different fields of study. This appears to be w…
This appears to be written by someone that doesn't have a background in what I think most people would identify as "science".
I admit that the combination of the headline plus the photo he uses in his sidebar made me think derp even before I started reading.
Re: Why I Hate Science
#8This reminds me very much of Paul Lutus' essay "Is Psychology a Science"
Re: Why I Hate Science
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Re: Why I Hate Science
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