Science’s Biggest Fail • Hacker News Board

Re: Science’s Biggest Fail

#231

Post by rybosome » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 12:58 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #204

rybosome wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...they must accept higher energy costs and possibly a reduced standard of living in order to combat a threat they cannot directly perceive." That's a tough one. From the perspective of a person whose livelihood depends on CO2-producing resources, or for whom the additional cost would push them into poverty, I can't blame them for feeling resistant - particularly when there is still debate as to the veracity, credib…

And here is where the general population's mistrust in science makes us dig our own graves. You have all sorts of movements, from lobbies to NIMBYs to "environmentalist" organizations blocking transition to sustainable energy. And sadly, I just can't imagine a modern democracy really committing to an infrastructure project as big as rebuilding the power grid. We need more Elon Musks, who will push the right solutions…

Honestly, I agree. In some ways when I think about the future I feel very hopeful; advancements in narrow AI and medical technology in particular are very easy to imagine as beneficial. Mostly though I feel very cynical and depressed by what appears to be the cultivation of ignorance as a virtue. I am convinced that we are fucked, barring a massive breakthrough in photovoltaic efficiency or nuclear fusion.

Re: Science’s Biggest Fail

#232

Post by pdx » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 1:56 AM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #224

pdx wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> those cases where you really are deservedly confident (e.g. vaccines) Why are you so confident in vaccines? There are papers saying your right to be confident http://1796kotok.com/pdfs/MMR_withdrawal.pdf ... and rebuttals to those papers. https://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/japvaxaut... Should we, as non-scientists automatically discount the rebuttals?

If I look at the second website, I see "wing nut". That's not someone challenging us to be skeptical and seek out information. That's "All vaccines bad. Ever." "Autism, autism, autism." "Vaccines Did Not Save Us - 2 Centuries of Statistics" "Autism in Amish Children - 1:10000" - Hmm, this "study" doesn't really consider why the Amish community might be measured differently. I just see lots of links to studies that we…

Well, yes, it's "Autism, autism, autism." That's why people are generally hesitant to vaccinate, and that's what the majority of the articles would be about.

I confess that I had not noticed the "Vaccines Did Not Save Us - 2 Centuries of Statistics" article, and when you mentioned it, it did give me pause. However, I went back, found it, and read it. Did you? It sounded very "sciency", with lots of graphs and data. Is it correct in it's conclusions? Should be, if it's data is correct. Is it correct in it's data? I honestly have no idea. Is my gut instinct to discount it? Yes, absolutely it is. However, I certainly can't refute any of the data it's presenting me with, so why am I so quick to discount? I shouldn't be.

You're either able to independently judge the veracity or lack of veracity of any given scientific claim, or you're not. If you're not, you need to remind yourself of that, and not be a voice in the mob. I need to remind myself of that too.

Re: Science’s Biggest Fail

#233

Post by mikeash » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 2:14 AM UTC

bronson wrote: post #168

mikeash wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they can't properly fact-check what they report, then what good are they? Any monkey with a laptop can regurgitate press releases these days. I suppose this is why traditional media is rapidly becoming irrelevant.

Fellow scientists and peer reviewers don't even fact-check properly. Are you holding journalists to a higher standard?

Are you saying that not fact-checking properly is acceptable?

Re: Science’s Biggest Fail

#234

Post by mcphage » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 3:19 AM UTC

dap wrote: post #195

mcphage wrote: post #16

Doing science is a lot like making sausages. There's a lot of conjecture, hypothesizing, testing, making observations, generating theories, testing those theories, throwing out the ones that don't hold up to repeatable studies. I don't think nutrition is unique in that matter. Where it differs from other sciences are: 1. The general public is very interested in the results, and so there's a lot of motivation for peop…

> And yet the needle moves forward, slowly. The problem is that it takes giant leaps backwards, too. See the discussion in other comments about margarine, saturated fats, and the links to heart disease. The scientific recommendations that were made promoted the very problem they were trying to address. As others have pointed out, this problem may largely be attributed to misinterpretation and miscommunication (rather…

It does move backwards. But that's good, too (for science, at least). Sometimes, when people generate hypotheses, and those hypotheses are wrong, they still seem to work when tested. That's just statistics. So someone tried something, it worked, and they reported it. Eventually other people will try it too, and will realize that the original hypothesis was wrong. And thus it gets corrected. But there's no way to avoid that apart from not sharing ideas, and it's vastly preferable to the other option—that wrong ideas never get corrected in the first place.

Re: Science’s Biggest Fail

#235

Post by mcphage » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 3:22 AM UTC

titanomachy wrote: post #128

mcphage wrote: post #16

Doing science is a lot like making sausages. There's a lot of conjecture, hypothesizing, testing, making observations, generating theories, testing those theories, throwing out the ones that don't hold up to repeatable studies. I don't think nutrition is unique in that matter. Where it differs from other sciences are: 1. The general public is very interested in the results, and so there's a lot of motivation for peop…

My takeaway from the article wasn't "science is broken", but "we should be more understanding of people who mistrust science". That interpretation reflects my own biases, of course.

Whether or not that was the author's intention, that's a good takeaway.

Re: Science’s Biggest Fail

#236

Post by mcphage » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 3:28 AM UTC

rbrogan wrote: post #61

mcphage wrote: post #16

Doing science is a lot like making sausages. There's a lot of conjecture, hypothesizing, testing, making observations, generating theories, testing those theories, throwing out the ones that don't hold up to repeatable studies. I don't think nutrition is unique in that matter. Where it differs from other sciences are: 1. The general public is very interested in the results, and so there's a lot of motivation for peop…

If no one says anything, then is there any motivation for it to get any better? Is the article is totally wrong or can it be translated into a problem statement whose solution is an improvement? IMO, it is equivalent to a user complaint about a software product. Possibly science researchers would not be the ones to solve the problem, but rather science journalists (I don't know). But still, if the public devalues the…

> Is the article is totally wrong or can it be translated into a problem statement whose solution is an improvement?

The article isn't totally wrong, but I think reflects a misunderstanding on how science works, and where the problem actually lies. What the author describes is (generally) science working as intended, but it doesn't mesh well with bite-size news headlines. You can think of it in terms of a leaky abstraction, if you want. People think of science as a relentless progression of improvement, but that's an abstraction that leaks when you react to ideas coming out of it too quickly.

Re: Science’s Biggest Fail

#237

Post by mcphage » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 3:33 AM UTC

api wrote: post #11

"I think science has earned its lack of credibility with the public. If you kick me in the balls for 20-years, how do you expect me to close my eyes and trust you?" I'm really happy to see that someone else sees this. I've been harping on this for a long time -- that the reason people believe things like anti-vaxx propaganda is not because they are idiots but because scientific authorities, the media, and the medical…

> because scientific authorities, the media, and the medical establishment have not earned their trust

Given the developments and accomplishments of science and medicine in the last few hundred years... if that doesn't earn peoples' trust, what will? When it provides cancer cures and hoverboards, will that satisfy people, or will they still want more? Sorry NASA hasn't done anything as cool as the moon landing, but if your friend thinks pretending it didn't happen will get us flying cars or space elevators any sooner, I don't have much sympathy for his position.

Re: Science’s Biggest Fail

#238

Post by cttet » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 4:31 AM UTC

Read the papers. The articles on news about "science" are only news.

Re: Science’s Biggest Fail

#239

Post by webnrrd2k » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 4:32 AM UTC

api wrote: post #11

"I think science has earned its lack of credibility with the public. If you kick me in the balls for 20-years, how do you expect me to close my eyes and trust you?" I'm really happy to see that someone else sees this. I've been harping on this for a long time -- that the reason people believe things like anti-vaxx propaganda is not because they are idiots but because scientific authorities, the media, and the medical…

I've noticed a different motive for many of the more kooky science-deniers. I think that kind of denialism is rooted in their own insecurities about their intelligence. In essence, if they can rig up some quick way to prove the experts wrong, then they are smarter than all the experts. Another way of putting it is this: Rather than put in the hard work of understanding a difficult or nuanced argument, they come up with an easy solution that shows, in their mind, how smart they are.

Re: Science’s Biggest Fail

#240

Post by snowwrestler » Tue, Feb 03, 2015, 5:02 AM UTC

msandford wrote: post #229

snowwrestler wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need a very detailed model to understand anthropogenic global warming, but you would need a detailed model to disprove it. Once you understand that certain gases in the atmosphere act as a heat reservoir, then the obvious hypothesis is that trapped heat will increase if the amount of those gases increases. Since we know we're increasing some of those gases by burning fossil fuels, we expect warming. There a…

The orders of magnitude more nodes and inputs mean that there are orders of magnitude more opportunities for mistakes to be made in the models. It also increases the likelihood of failing to find a confounding variable. The upper bound on system complexity is factorial. I shouldn't need to explain how big that is when you start talking about many orders of magnitude.

That is why it is so difficult to predict the weather. But you don't need to predict the weather to predict changes to the global climate.

Just like you don't need much of a model to predict that if a rogue planet passed through the solar system, existing orbits would be perturbed. Calculating the precise perturbations would be complex, but not predicting their existence.

Likewise, it's difficult to predict exactly how more heat in the atmosphere will change local weather. But it's not hard to predict that heat will build up if the gases build up.