Science’s Biggest Fail

>I understand the nature of scientific theory, and that scientific theory is not dogma or absolute revealed truth, but does the public? And was that ever communicated?

Yes, people are generally not hostile to science and understand it's a best-effort work-in-progress-type thing. The problem is that the Science Zealots haven't gotten this memo, and go around flashing "studies" in peoples' faces (often completely without specificity) like it justifies something. When they do this, people get defensive. The "rejection of science" is the rejection of science as inviolable truth, dogma, religion, not the rejection of the continuing enterprise of cooperative human improvement.

If someone says "I can't even speak to someone who is anti-vax/anti-climate change/anti-same-sex marriage/etc", this is religiously motivated bigotry.

He mentions privately funded scientific ventures being fudged often.

And if what you say is the case, you present a stronger reason for skepticism of scientific claim than mere pattern recognition.

The piece is certainly sensationalist but it presents a valid point and tries to offer a view of understanding of alternative viewpoints. Walking in other people's shoes seems to be something many in the world have trouble doing.

I know I've certainly met some quite militant science folks who think everyone who doesn't vehemently believe in the latest scientific concept is an idiot because p < 0.05. That kind of attitude wins no hearts and changes no minds of the "non believers".

Speaking of recommendations that lead to heart disease, three sarcastic cheers for massively understating the risks associated with abstinence from alcohol. Mostly I just hear "moderate consumption is associated with some health benefits", which isn't anywhere close to conveying the findings (questionable, as always!) that not drinking is almost as risky as "heavy" drinking. Especially considering that you practically have to be a raging alcoholic to fall into the "heavy" category.

> science failed my parents generation with cigarettes

My father said that cigarettes were popularly called "coffin nails" when he was a boy in the 1920s, and that doctors routinely advised their patients to quit smoking. I've never heard of science advising people to smoke.

Any scientist who cut open a smoker and saw those black, puss-filled lungs knew it wasn't good for you.

The best demonstration of the fact that food science has failed, and the fact that commercial influence is prevalent in modern science and academics, is that obesity is still a significant global concern.

Almost everything you can buy at a grocery store in the United States has been altered to make it more addictive. If you go to a store and buy the foods labeled as healthy, you'll soon learn that they're not really that different after all. If you go to a store determined to buy only food that is actually healthy, you're limited practically exclusive to fruits and vegetables, and even that is questionable since we don't know what type of chemical treatments or preservatives have been applied.

"Make everyone eat only celery and go to the gym for 2 hours per day" is just not going to work. It may be a nice fantasy but it is never going to solve the obesity epidemic on a significant scale. Addictive ingredients have the side effect of causing obesity and as long as that's true, people are going to be cajoled into eating incorrectly at every turn, because everyone involved wants to sell you more food.

The obesity epidemic is a result of scientific advancements that have allowed us to acquire an unlimited amount of the most biologically desirable food ingredients on a near-global scale. We can't go back in time and uninvent this stuff, and we can't actually expect people to switch to a diet of 25 celery sticks per day, so we need a scientific solution that solves the problem. And there isn't one, because obesity doesn't really represent a commercial threat to anyone in particular -- if anything, it creates new commercial opportunity for another super-powerful industry in the U.S.: medicine.

Maybe the airline industry will fund a solution once people get too heavy to be effectively carried by airplane.