Comment by NoMoreNicksLeft 6 months ago
>Of the people who distrust science,
Why should anyone trust science? Skepticism should always be the default position. Putting it on a pedestal to be worshipped is what led us all into this mess. If science needs trust to work, then whatever it is doing is something I'd like to see fail.
Right. RFK supporters aren’t carefully weighing evidence to arrive at their conclusions, they are blindly following someone who is a mindless contrarian with a 30yr vendetta against vaccines. No amount or quality of peer review is going to change any of their minds.
> RFK supporters aren’t carefully weighing evidence to arrive at their conclusions, they are blindly following someone
I'd actually be curious what fraction of his supporters share his views on vaccines. It strikes me as more likely that they like one of his random, idiosyncratic views and are willing to excuse the anti-vaccine nonsense to get those policy outcomes.
That, but also people who take the blanket view that none of the work produced by the scientific establishment is trustworthy. An ironic stance considering that it's the inverse of the blind worship that they accuse others of.
>none of the work produced by the scientific establishment is trustworthy.
There's that word again. No works are trustworthy. You shouldn't trust, instead verify. Be skeptical. I'm more concerned with which of their works can be verified.
>An ironic stance considering that it's the inverse of the blind worship
I'm not sure there's any difference worth mentioning between blind worship and cuddly warm trusting that you want to do. One may seem a little less zealous, but it's the same pig just with extra lipstick.
Assuming the widespread presence of blatant fraud in the absence of evidence is (at least to my mind) the inverse of blind worship. There is no difference in validity between an unfounded assumption of misdeed or virtue.
By "trustworthy" I mean nothing more than the same presumption of innocence absent evidence to the contrary that you extend at the grocery store when you assume that the food you're purchasing isn't poisoned or rotten or etc. That doesn't mean the published results are reproducible, the measurements without (unintentional) error, or the conclusions logically sound. Merely that there isn't an active attempt being made to deceive or otherwise knowingly mislead the reader to the advantage of the author.
What I'm describing is an incredibly low bar with broad applicability that society generally requires in order to function.
> That, but also people who take the blanket view that none of the work produced by the scientific establishment is trustworthy.
That’s a red herring. No scientist actually says that. What we say is that on some subjects the evidence is overwhelming and to overcome the current understanding you need compelling evidence and theories, not screeches about bias and liberal elites.
No. We are not going to take seriously someone’s pet theory about a new perpetual motion machine, or cold fusion, or lack of global warming, or the ineffectiveness of vaccines, or anything that is contrary to massive amounts of accumulated evidence.
> Why should anyone trust science? Skepticism should always be the default position.
Skepticism is not anti-scientific. Hell, distrusting results and theories is not anti-scientific. Distrusting the scientific method is. There is a difference.
> Putting it on a pedestal to be worshipped is what led us all into this mess.
Scientists did not ask for this. Amongst all high profile politicians, those who whine about science becoming political are those who made it so, by taking contrarian positions to rile up their voter base. Most people who make this point are not being honest. If you are, you should make specific arguments rather than rehash propaganda.
>Skepticism is not anti-scientific.
One might think that to be the case, but science is in a hurry to save our planet, and it has no patience for your skepticism. It may already be too late.
>Distrusting the scientific method is.
Maybe I don't trust it either. Maybe because I'm distrustful, the scientific method should prove, over and over again, that it's worth a damn. And maybe when it's finally proven that, maybe I go on distrusting it... and make it prove it some more. If one truly though the scientific method worthy of any respect, such a person might say "that's ok, because it will go on re-proving what has already been proven". But so little do I ever hear of that sentiment. Like in this very thread.
>Scientists did not ask for this.
Probably not. I'd be skeptical of the theory that they asked for it. But it doesn't seem altogether implausible that they might have enjoyed it once it happened even though they didn't ask. And liking it, they started behaving in ways that encouraged it just the same. And those scientists who enjoyed it the most elbowed their way to the front to egg it on even more. And so that's where we are now. I mean, I'm a little skeptical that it happened that way, and I'd welcome evidence that disproves it.
>Most people who make this point are not being honest.
It's really sort of hilarious how it's only my side that can ever be honest. Not the other guys'. And this is true no matter who "me" is. None of your opponents, for instance, can ever be genuine... they're always trying to cheat. And if your side tries to cheat, well, it's with the best of intentions because the stakes are so high. Not that you would cheat, only the other side ever does that.
>f you are, you should make specific arguments rather than rehash propaganda.
If we can't start here, then there can be no real conversation. Basically you're just asking me to surrender and admit that I'm the bad guy trying to cheat and swindle, everything I say is a lie, and you're the innocent victims. Haha.
> One might think that to be the case, but science is in a hurry to save our planet, and it has no patience for your skepticism. It may already be too late.
As a matter of fact, it is already too late for some of the consequences. The permafrost is not going to re-freeze, for example, and wildfires are already significantly on the rise.
The thing is, I don’t believe this because science, I know this for a fact because it was proven. It’s like nihilistic edgelords giving cynicism a bad name. Skepticism is not the rejection of facts because they are inconvenient. It is not stubbornness in the face of evidence, either.
> Maybe I don't trust it either. Maybe because I'm distrustful, the scientific method should prove, over and over again, that it's worth a damn.
Right, but then to prove itself it needs to be evaluated and assessed. You need a kind of method to do so, including a standard of proof and the basics of reasoning and logic. This framework is itself the scientific method. If you start from the axiom that it does not work, then the only conclusion is that it does not work, because how would you prove otherwise?
> If one truly though the scientific method worthy of any respect, such a person might say "that's ok, because it will go on re-proving what has already been proven".
Well, yeah. That’s what we do. Though the standards shift over time in the face of overwhelming evidence. We can not start from first principles every time, it just does not work and there are theories we can rely on. But when holes are found in these theories we try to figure out what the problem is and how to build better ones. The scientific method itself has been refined over centuries and the standards now are far from what Newton used. A common example is the evolution of what is considered to be a proof in Physics.
> But it doesn't seem altogether implausible that they might have enjoyed it once it happened even though they didn't ask.
I am sure some of them do, and not necessarily the best ones. But most of us are not attracted by public engagement and just want to do our science in our lab. We did not ask to become pawns in sectarian struggles. We rang the alarm because, honestly, when the house is on fire you have to do something and not doing it would mean some degree of responsibility in the outcome.
> It's really sort of hilarious how it's only my side that can ever be honest.
I am not following. I am not talking about sides. Regrettable attitudes towards science are not confined in one political or social tribe and there are examples in history of both right- and left-leaning ideologies becoming anti-science. But yeah, making a topic political in order to then claim that it is political is blatantly dishonest. It’s a cheap rhetorical trick with lasting consequences. What is political is how you address the situation, not whether reality is real.
> If we can't start here, then there can be no real conversation. Basically you're just asking me to surrender and admit that I'm the bad guy trying to cheat and swindle, everything I say is a lie, and you're the innocent victims. Haha.
You are reading way too much. First, I am not attacking you. Then, a good starting point is facts we can observe and things we can infer from them instead of the a priori position that reality is not real and the other side is just making stuff up.
> wildfires are already significantly on the rise.
Wildfires at at relatively low levels, historically. US burn acreage is about 10M acres per year at the moment, same as it was in 1955. During the hot dustbowl years burn acreage was as high as 50M/year.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210129125036/https://www.nifc....
You're unaware of this because "scientists" like to truncate wildfire graphs at around 1983, knowing that insufficiently skeptical people won't check if there's data available from earlier years. The choice of 1983 isn't arbitrary, it's when the downward trend in the graph goes into mild reverse as people started to realize that suppressing wildfires isn't always the best policy. There follows a small, gentle rise to a level still far below what it was historically (and arguably, what it should be).
Now, obviously, they don't say that. They say oh dear, in 1983 we changed our process and - incredibly - that they have no idea where data came from before that, so please ignore all previously collected data. The numbers just, like, magically appeared in their spreadsheets. This sort of trick is common, and it correctly leads to distrust as obviously, if they genuinely believe data before 1983 is useless, they can't make statements about the effect of climate change on wildfires one way or another. But that would also be an enormous scandal given all the money spent collecting that data.
> I don’t believe this because science, I know this for a fact because it was proven.
You haven't actually gone out and monitored wildfires with your own eyes, that's impossible. When you say it's a "fact" and "proven", what you mean is, people you trust from institutions you aren't skeptical of told you that they did go out and count wildfire acreage, and that it's a "fact" that wildfires are getting worse. Then you assumed they're completely trustworthy and would never do things like drop data points to force a trend, so it became a fact in your mind and you became unable to understand why anyone might disagree.
Now repeat this problem 1000x. That's where the fighting comes from, where the distrust comes from.
> Why should anyone trust science?
When people talk about those who distrust science, they aren't referring to the carefully sceptical. They're talking about people who come to a conclusion and then reject any evidence against it.