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Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

#101

Post by dwaltrip »

cuspy wrote: post #55

Given the track record of institutional science and the ever-growing list of regulatory failures, moral failures and outright abuses pushed in the guise of scientific expertise, why do so many people seem to think that simply doubling down and bullying the general population into compliance with expert consensus will ever work? What if institutional science in the US has a legitimacy crisis because it has failed to p…

> I'd rather be ruled over by elite families than squabbling, territorial, overconfident scientists who can be bought off for nothing and blackmailed easily.

Like the Trump family? I love me some "elite" autocratic rule!

The future never looked brighter. Idiocracy here we come.

Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

#102

Post by AlexTWithBeard »

readingnews wrote: post #79
AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #68

Science is important. Science is great. I love science. Let's just be extremely careful when trying to apply the latest scientific achievements in our day to day lives. Phlogiston theory of 17th century was wrong. Race theory of 18th century was wrong. Semmelweis was laughed at in 19th century. And lobotomies were perfectly scientific for treating depressed patients for most of 20th century. I doubt 21st century's sc…

Four examples of bad science? I see a trend in these comments that people here are pretty anti-science. I would like to remind us all to just take a peek around us, and look at what was not even possible, not even imaginable, a mere fifty to one hundred years ago. We are speaking to one another using faradays laws and discoveries, teslas fascination with wireless and countless physicists and engineers that build prac…

How many examples would be enough? Five? Fifty five?

Quite a lot of people here (including yours truly) have scientific background.

All I'm saying is: let's be careful and let's be skeptical - as real scientists are.

Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

#103

Post by marcosdumay »

readingnews wrote: post #79
AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #68

Science is important. Science is great. I love science. Let's just be extremely careful when trying to apply the latest scientific achievements in our day to day lives. Phlogiston theory of 17th century was wrong. Race theory of 18th century was wrong. Semmelweis was laughed at in 19th century. And lobotomies were perfectly scientific for treating depressed patients for most of 20th century. I doubt 21st century's sc…

Four examples of bad science? I see a trend in these comments that people here are pretty anti-science. I would like to remind us all to just take a peek around us, and look at what was not even possible, not even imaginable, a mere fifty to one hundred years ago. We are speaking to one another using faradays laws and discoveries, teslas fascination with wireless and countless physicists and engineers that build prac…

Were all of them bad science? (The first two were clearly so, but I'm not sure about the last ones.) Because if so, it's easy to look a bit more and find completely wrong conclusions taken from good science too.

But anyway, all of those were mainstream at some time. The point is that yielding to experts is anti-science. The fact that your experts work in a research lab instead of a church makes little difference here.

Scientific decision making requires that at a minimum you verify your experts results, and be ready to notice when they are wrong. This article is as anti-science as the policies it is trying to fight, and this is a bad thing that can only create mistrust from the public.

Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

#104

Post by mistermann »

ohduran wrote: post #34

Maybe the reason we are in this mess is because we relied too much on science, and too little on actual humanities (rhetoric, logic, and so on)? I hear about hermeneutics more and more in my circle: how to communicate trumps what is communicated. I can see why Fauci and many top scientists fail to convince people like Trump and his supporters: he knows, but can't communicate what he knows so that information is conve…

> he knows, but can't communicate what he knows

One example of this was when he knowingly misled (as one player in a coordinated effort) the public about the usefulness of the general public wearing masks at the initial outbreak of the pandemic. Now that the truth came out, Trump supporters have indeed latched onto this as proof that what the medical establishment says is not always true. Whether the benefit was worth the cost is another one of those things that is unknown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XHC5Kxxv_w (1:30 onward)

https://www.facebook.com/BettzDNS/videos/10216890195312387/ (Note the rhetorical "fact checking" warning about the video.

Whether you like it or not, people will react to this behavior in ways that are non-beneficial to overall society. I wonder if that is taken into consideration when strategic decisions are made behind closed doors on what representation of reality is projected into people's minds. Another one of those things that will remain unknown I imagine.

Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

#105

Post by ssivark »

cuspy wrote: post #55

Given the track record of institutional science and the ever-growing list of regulatory failures, moral failures and outright abuses pushed in the guise of scientific expertise, why do so many people seem to think that simply doubling down and bullying the general population into compliance with expert consensus will ever work? What if institutional science in the US has a legitimacy crisis because it has failed to p…

As a fellow scientist (also very enthusiastic about science), the problem is that some factions are trying to bully through what are actually policy positions in the name of “science”, thereby hurting the credibility of the institution of scientific truth seeking. Articles like this one are definitely only hurting, from the longer term perspective.

Eg: However accurate/inaccurate/useful/useless epidemiology models might be, “science” can never answer questions about the recommended scale of our activities/lockdown/reopening. It’s ultimately a matter of values and judgement based on risk-tolerance given current situation and needs (which might also take into account model predictions and uncertainties). It is asinine to expect epidemiologists to make final policy recommendations (or for leaders to defer responsibility to them), since they understand only one piece of the puzzle. It is ultimately a judgment call to be made by political leaders elected exactly for that job.

Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

#106

Post by matthewmacleod »

nostromo wrote: post #60
cuspy wrote: post #55

Given the track record of institutional science and the ever-growing list of regulatory failures, moral failures and outright abuses pushed in the guise of scientific expertise, why do so many people seem to think that simply doubling down and bullying the general population into compliance with expert consensus will ever work? What if institutional science in the US has a legitimacy crisis because it has failed to p…

Science in America tends to be practiced in universities, and universities in America are no longer open to the free exchange of ideas. While it may look like the public is losing faith in science, it's actually the public losing faith in the platform on which science is practiced: academia. If we want the public to regain faith in scientific findings, we need to fix academia.

The extent to which this is the case is massively overstated, particularly with regard to the “culture war” aspect I infer you mean from your comment.

Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

#107

Post by slg »

cuspy wrote: post #55

Given the track record of institutional science and the ever-growing list of regulatory failures, moral failures and outright abuses pushed in the guise of scientific expertise, why do so many people seem to think that simply doubling down and bullying the general population into compliance with expert consensus will ever work? What if institutional science in the US has a legitimacy crisis because it has failed to p…

>What if institutional science in the US has a legitimacy crisis because it has failed to police its own corruption and failed to address its own limitations and vulnerabilities? What if everyday people can see this more clearly than those striving on the margins of these institutions?

You are giving the anti-science crowd a huge benefit of the doubt. I don't think people who believe the Earth is flat or that wearing a cloth mask can cause you to give yourself COVID (EDIT: I was referring to the idea pushed by anti-science propaganda like Plandemic[1] that states masks "activate" COVID) is the result of a cogent analysis of the corruption of scientific institutions.

[1] - https://www.livescience.com/debunking-plandemic-coronavirus-...

Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

#108

Post by matthewmacleod »

cuspy wrote: post #81
cuspy wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree to some extent, but the whole "culture war" dimension of this question is far less important than people think. It has much more to do with corruption and broken incentive structures than with the identitarian critiques being pumped out by poorly-funded humanities departments. Until getting so much attention recently, they were at worst a minor check on what really has been an undeserved intellectual hegemony…

After all, the real target of these kinds of articles is obviously the supposedly right-wing extremist "science deniers" who reject the critical theory stuff even more strongly than scientists themselves do. We need to clean our own house. I can't even keep track of how many brilliant people I personally know who have left academic research. It's really very tragic and our duty as citizens should be to ignore all the…

The real reason so many have left academia is that it requires loads of work and skill but pays like shit.

I don’t think it’s even vaguely to do with any of this “lack of free exchange of ideas” nonsense that a particular group of people love to bang on about.

Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

#109

Post by UncleOxidant »

achillesheels wrote: post #89
ptero wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard of tailoring findings to the preferences of the grant giver (advocate a wrong view and kiss your grant good-bye). This is very worrisome as a lot of experimental science labs are so grant dependent. I actually think this is partly a self-inflicted wound -- a large fraction of major grant givers want truth and can stand findings that go against their beliefs, but given the heavy dependence of labs on grants th…

Hence the reason science has always been an aristocratic pursuit. Georg Feuerbach demonstrates this point with the thought-provoking claim that only a polytheistic tradition (such as Athens) can breed a love of natural beauty which obligates a love of knowing its ways. But it is principally a love of Nature (and it’s universals) and not a love of wealth which moves the civilization higher. Galileo, Descartes, Newton…

I'm not sure I follow the connection here:

> only a polytheistic tradition (such as Athens) can breed a love of natural beauty which obligates a love of knowing its ways.

None of the people in your list below were polytheists:

> Galileo, Descartes, Newton

Re: Science and scientific expertise are more important than ever

#110

Post by tehjoker »

cuspy wrote: post #55

Given the track record of institutional science and the ever-growing list of regulatory failures, moral failures and outright abuses pushed in the guise of scientific expertise, why do so many people seem to think that simply doubling down and bullying the general population into compliance with expert consensus will ever work? What if institutional science in the US has a legitimacy crisis because it has failed to p…

I find it interesting that everyone responding to this finds it unthinkable that democracy and critical thinking are possible without the need for monarchs nor experts who function as technocrats rather than peers.

It's like pining for the Philosopher Kings of the Platonic tradition. Plato hated democracy fyi.

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