When any kind of censorship, including self-censorship, total or partial, goes into a publication or its silencing, it will transform a piece of knowledge in ammunition of technical-propaganda instead of science.
PS: same happens with true art.
Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
401–410 of 970 posts
Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
#402Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean the one for people whose life expectancy was less than half the modern day? Who lived completely different lives?
This argument pretends that diet is the only cause of death.
No, it doesn't. It acknowledges that a diet for hunter-gatherers that rarely lived to 50 might not be best diet for a people who expend less energy and live far longer.
Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
#403Just throwing my 2c into the well, as someone who used to be highly "pro-science" but lost confidence in much of academia and the validity of scientific research in general after starting a PhD and seeing how the sausage is made. The biggest problem science is facing is not an external threat from a rabble of ignorant science deniers, but the complete degradation of quality within the scientific institutions themselv…
There are a ton of problems with how science is done and most of it comes down to the same root cause: greed. You have corporations buying off scientists (if not to rig experiments/falsify results, then to bury unfavorable findings), journals willing to publish any garbage with little (if any) meaningful review, then media companies willing to turn that junk science into a click-bait friendly press release for a comp…
I suppose that over time, science changed from a hobby for the wealthy to a source of wealth for companies.
Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
#404The issue that plagues us is a lack of trust in long-standing societal authorities. We can't follow the entire scientific proof chain for every piece of information we encounter, because we don't have time. So we rely on authority to some extent, whether that be peer review, government, independent bodies, etc. We need to be able to trust that these bodies are telling us the truth and aren't seeking to mislead us. Be…
> because we don’t have time This part is a huge society-wide problem that can theoretically be fixed so people can become more informed and active participants in the framework of their daily lives. Don’t ask me how, though, because I just got off work and am too exhausted to do anything except let the news tell me what to be afraid of today, then probably binge The Office and slam a few brewskis until I fall asleep…
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Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
#405Just throwing my 2c into the well, as someone who used to be highly "pro-science" but lost confidence in much of academia and the validity of scientific research in general after starting a PhD and seeing how the sausage is made. The biggest problem science is facing is not an external threat from a rabble of ignorant science deniers, but the complete degradation of quality within the scientific institutions themselv…
I don't disagree that there's degradation of quality. There should be a lack of trust in our institutions (and really a need to invest in them more). What confuses me though is why there is trust in sources that have so much less reason to be trusted. The forces undermining the quality of scientific institutions are at play outside those institutions as well, and outside the framework, there's far less of a defense against them.
We're seeing all kinds of chicanery that I had thought had largely been consigned to history, but it's all making a comeback.
Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
#406Just throwing my 2c into the well, as someone who used to be highly "pro-science" but lost confidence in much of academia and the validity of scientific research in general after starting a PhD and seeing how the sausage is made. The biggest problem science is facing is not an external threat from a rabble of ignorant science deniers, but the complete degradation of quality within the scientific institutions themselv…
> Most research is flawed or useless, but published anyway because it's expedient for the authors to do so. For the record I now know a professor at one of the premier institutions in the world, who is a total fraud. Their research was fraudulent in grad school. Their lab mates tried to raise concerns and nothing happened. That person graduated, with everyone on the committee knowing the issues. Then they got a premi…
Let us know their name.
Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
#407Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm skeptical that education is a solution to collapsing societal trust. First, the primary organs that would be capable of this education are the media, who have a profit motive to stoke any and all fears (immigration, radiological warfare, world war, coffee being carcinogenic). Second, I think this distrust goes beyond "the CDC said something wrong once, I don't trust them as much anymore." That could be solved wit…
It's not just that the CDC and other institutions of scientific authority 'said something wrong once.' I think most people understand and accept that science is not perfect. Instead, those institutions have shown that they are willing to publish nobel lies . Specifically, they are willing to bend the truth and publish false information if they believe it is in the best interest of society / greater good. Given an ent…
EPA famously did the same during 9/11. It would have been better if they instead trusted us and said something along the lines of "the dust is full of dangerous asbestos, but we need heroes this day".
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/10/epa-head-wro...
Instead they prefer messaging to achieve an outcome instead of direct truth.
Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
#408Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of this may be true, but it leads to the question: if not science, what do you recommend instead? Not being a virologist or epidemiologist, I have to listen to somebody . Are you saying I'd actually be better off listening to Art Bell and Joe Rogan than official sources like Fauci? If so, that's an extraordinary claim if there ever was one.
Accept that there is no source of info you can just believe at face value. You need to collect information from across your infosphere and intensively de-bias and cross-check it. It'll take a lot of effort. If that's not worth it to you, go agnostic on things you don't have time to figure out, or join a tribe and shout the slogans with your tribe-friends. Your life choices will depend on your values.
This has been my method for quite some time. It is very time consuming. I rarely reach conclusions, but I get close enough to feel confident in my choices.
Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
#409Just throwing my 2c into the well, as someone who used to be highly "pro-science" but lost confidence in much of academia and the validity of scientific research in general after starting a PhD and seeing how the sausage is made. The biggest problem science is facing is not an external threat from a rabble of ignorant science deniers, but the complete degradation of quality within the scientific institutions themselv…
As a person working in science (long past PhD), I disagree. There are tons of problem in science: grant system, pressure to publish etc. Also everyone in science is still a person with standard people problems: ego, desire to be right, wanting recognition etc. Also some fields had more issues because of poor statistical methods etc. But the self-correcting nature of science is still its biggest redeeming feature. And…
It's going to be hard to "self-correct" when sceptical and critical voices are muted.
Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
#410Just throwing my 2c into the well, as someone who used to be highly "pro-science" but lost confidence in much of academia and the validity of scientific research in general after starting a PhD and seeing how the sausage is made. The biggest problem science is facing is not an external threat from a rabble of ignorant science deniers, but the complete degradation of quality within the scientific institutions themselv…
There are a ton of problems with how science is done and most of it comes down to the same root cause: greed. You have corporations buying off scientists (if not to rig experiments/falsify results, then to bury unfavorable findings), journals willing to publish any garbage with little (if any) meaningful review, then media companies willing to turn that junk science into a click-bait friendly press release for a comp…
It's not only greed, but corporatism. People on institutions are entrenched and will defend their own interests even when it's immoral and stupid. And at the end of the day most will have zero doubts about their integrity and rightness because the human mind is amazing and allow for a large degree of cognitive dissonance.