The Mistrust of Science and Scholarship

[Taraz]

Something that has been bothering me lately is the general mistrust of scientific and academic research in American society. Obviously it is good to be skeptical and critical of all new information you hear. But when there is a consensus among the experts in a given field, it seems like we should defer to their judgment. So why doesn't this happen?

It's not like scientists and academics get paid a lot of money for their work. And they usually don't choose their fields for any reason other than they are fascinated by it. They have chosen to devote their life's work to a subject! So aside from a few individuals, why would we expect that they are misleading the public with their claims?

I don't buy the argument that researchers are just going along with the status quo. It seems like they would have much, much more to gain if they could prove the general consensus wrong. Imagine if you scientifically proved that gravity actually behaves differently than we now think. This would be huge news. You would get so much face time, notoriety, and FUNDING to do further research.

So what gives? Why does the public seem to discount the claims of the academics?

[Archon_Wing]

Look no further than the likes of William Jennings Bryan.
There is a belief that academics are somehow disconnected with reality and thus their findings are not relevant to daily life, which most people care about. People fear and despise what they can't understand and are convinced that the academics will use concepts and language to confuse and mislead them. When you introduce theories that strongly conflict with current belief, such as evolution, you get a lot of friction. Heck, evolution is still disputed

There's the thing with funding. People may be suspicious that researchers may compromise their research to get funding. Whether this is true or not, it still still creates problems as the few stories of unethical researches get passed around. Now since the government plays a significant role in academia, (who funds and manages all those great public universities) we have this whole big brother fear going on.

And don't forget how the public uses receives findings for research-- not through research journals typically, but through popular media which typically has to break it down into some soundbites.

[jesse8888]

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

I think a lot of people live life by this rule quite literally. In any facet of their life they go about their business believing the "experts" until any one of them is proven to be wrong. Once that happens, the average person wants to "protect" herself by not believing anything.

I personally did this with my car. I trusted mechanics at the dealership completely until I had evidence that one of them tried to rip me off. Now, I don't trust any of them, even if they say "well, you might want new tires, that one is pretty bald" and I can actually see my reflection in the tire.

Just ramblings on a slow Friday at work....

[Metric]

I think there's more skepticism in some fields than others -- particularly the fields where the findings are used by politicians to get us to do something. I study physics, which is pretty clean in this regard, and I don't encounter much skepticism at all.

One problem is that science is supposed to gain our confidence by sticking its neck out with new predictions -- if it survives, then we assign it some credibility. If the head gets chopped off, however, we are more likely to toss that particular idea aside.

The problem with climatology, etc. is that it combines the worst of both of these issues. "Sticking your neck out" amounts to making predictions for the future, perhaps decades down the line -- but the last time they did this, with the whole "global cooling" scenario in the 70's, the prevailing idea was, in fact, chopped off and thrown aside. And yet we're asked to make crucial economic policy decisions based on global warming models without much of an opportunity to see them succeed or fail. This is quite simply a recipe for intense skepticism, regardless of whether the models turn out to be right or wrong, or how much evidence the actual scientists working on these models believe they have.

This is aside from the whole "generate money and attention by creating a scare" argument, which may or may not be valid.

[Philo]

[ QUOTE ]
Something that has been bothering me lately is the general mistrust of scientific and academic research in American society...when there is a consensus among the experts in a given field, it seems like we should defer to their judgment. So why doesn't this happen?



[/ QUOTE ]

Can you give an example of an established scientific claim that the general public rejects?

[Hopey]

[ QUOTE ]

Can you give an example of an established scientific claim that the general public rejects?

[/ QUOTE ]

(Human-caused) Global Warming and the theory of Evolution.

[Taraz]

[ QUOTE ]
Look no further than the likes of William Jennings Bryan.
There is a belief that academics are somehow disconnected with reality and thus their findings are not relevant to daily life, which most people care about. People fear and despise what they can't understand and are convinced that the academics will use concepts and language to confuse and mislead them. When you introduce theories that strongly conflict with current belief, such as evolution, you get a lot of friction. Heck, evolution is still disputed

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a good point about academics talking over the public's head. It is pretty tough for experts to put their results in layman's terms because they don't like to simplify complex situations. They definitely need to do a better job of this.

[ QUOTE ]

There's the thing with funding. People may be suspicious that researchers may compromise their research to get funding. Whether this is true or not, it still still creates problems as the few stories of unethical researches get passed around. Now since the government plays a significant role in academia, (who funds and manages all those great public universities) we have this whole big brother fear going on.

[/ QUOTE ]

But the second something becomes a consensus in a community, it seems like you'd get more funding if you could prove it wrong. I'm talking about established theories and facts that people are skeptical of. But, I take your point though.

[ QUOTE ]

And don't forget how the public uses receives findings for research-- not through research journals typically, but through popular media which typically has to break it down into some soundbites.

[/ QUOTE ]

Also a good point. Especially since a lot of news these days comes in the form of panels who disagree. So even if there is a 90% chance that something is true, you hear both sides equally so the viewer will think that both sides are equally reputable and probable.

[thylacine]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Something that has been bothering me lately is the general mistrust of scientific and academic research in American society...when there is a consensus among the experts in a given field, it seems like we should defer to their judgment. So why doesn't this happen?



[/ QUOTE ]

Can you give an example of an established scientific claim that the general public rejects?

[/ QUOTE ]

rejected by large minorities of the general public at least:
evolution
big bang

[PairTheBoard]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Something that has been bothering me lately is the general mistrust of scientific and academic research in American society...when there is a consensus among the experts in a given field, it seems like we should defer to their judgment. So why doesn't this happen?



[/ QUOTE ]

Can you give an example of an established scientific claim that the general public rejects?

[/ QUOTE ]

The 3 examples have been given, Human caused Global Warming, Evolution, and the Big Bang.

That's not a long list. They bring into play special biasing factors for some people. And they have peculiarities as Scientific theories. The subjective biases people can have are Religious and Economic. As Science, they do not allow for the kind of repeatable controlled testing that the scientific method normally prescribes. Thus, they are more subject to correlation-causation problems. Does the data conform to the theory because it was caused by what the theory says? Or is the data being caused by something else and simply correlates with the theory coincidentally?

Evolution can predict that if it finds fossil records they will tend to fill in the gaps in evolutionary history. But it is constrained in the specificity of such predictions because there is no way of knowing what kind of fossils they are likely to discover. The theory has such a long Time element that it depends heavily on such historical searches. They would like to apply the scientific method to where they could "watch" evolution happening. But the Time element in the theory makes that impractical. The Big Bang relies simliarly on interpretation of data still existant which points to events of the past. We can't produce a Big Bang in the lab.

That's not to say the Theories are not good science. The Theories continue to be consistent with the data that becomes available to them. We just can't provide them with the kinds of experiments testable by the scientific method whereby we could see if the data produced would be consistent with predictions of the Theories. We can't produce New Data for the theories the way we would like because it's not practical.

I susupect people who object to the Theories have some intuition about these experimental constraints peculiar to them. Combine that with some special Biases and you have disbelievers.

In general though, I think people realize that what science tells them is usually pretty good stuff.

PairTheBoard

[PLOlover]

[ QUOTE ]
Can you give an example of an established scientific claim that the general public rejects?

[/ QUOTE ]

homosexuality, although psychology is not a real science of course.

[PLOlover]

I think a lot of the mistrust has to do with the mistrust of the professions (doctor, lawyer). I mean, let's face it, a lawyer's job is to lie lie lie.

I mean the professionals go to college, and the scientists go to college, there's some bleedover there I guess.

just a thought.

[m_the0ry]

This reminds me of a story one of my best friends told me a while ago about his aunt. She had a Ph.D from a prestigious university and every day after coming home from work she would drink. She was an alcoholic. He wasn't scared of her and she wasn't a mean drinker, but for a long while he never had the courage to ask her what exactly her doctorate was in or what her job was. Eventually he asked and he summarized her response for me. She said the highest paying job for many postgraduate degree-holders is in making announcements to the press and public - for an organization - so that they can reference and cite the material with false credibility. Almost always it involved unethical representation of data and solely was for the progression of some agenda. She was sickened by her job and so she drank to forget it.

In the ideal world, money would be meaningless to politicians and scientists. But they can still be bought. For every scientist developing a stem cell based cure for parkinsons, there's a scientist working for NASA whose sole job is to deny the existence of global warming as verbally as possible.


And as we all know, losing trust is easy, gaining it is difficult. How can the scientific community expect to hold the trust of the people when the same labels that are intended to set them apart are being abused to push political agendas?

[Taraz]

[ QUOTE ]

The 3 examples have been given, Human caused Global Warming, Evolution, and the Big Bang.

That's not a long list. They bring into play special biasing factors for some people. And they have peculiarities as Scientific theories. The subjective biases people can have are Religious and Economic. As Science, they do not allow for the kind of repeatable controlled testing that the scientific method normally prescribes. Thus, they are more subject to correlation-causation problems. Does the data conform to the theory because it was caused by what the theory says? Or is the data being caused by something else and simply correlates with the theory coincidentally?

[/ QUOTE ]

The problem is that there is overwhelming evidence for evolution and man-made global warming. It is our best approximation at the moment by the people who spend their lives studying these problems. Many people just aren't educated and haven't really read about these matters. But some flat out reject these theories after doing thirty minutes of research on the internet. It's a little distressing to me that these people think they somehow know better than leading scientists WORLDWIDE.

[ QUOTE ]

Evolution can predict that if it finds fossil records they will tend to fill in the gaps in evolutionary history. But it is constrained in the specificity of such predictions because there is no way of knowing what kind of fossils they are likely to discover. The theory has such a long Time element that it depends heavily on such historical searches. They would like to apply the scientific method to where they could "watch" evolution happening. But the Time element in the theory makes that impractical. The Big Bang relies simliarly on interpretation of data still existant which points to events of the past. We can't produce a Big Bang in the lab.

That's not to say the Theories are not good science. The Theories continue to be consistent with the data that becomes available to them. We just can't provide them with the kinds of experiments testable by the scientific method whereby we could see if the data produced would be consistent with predictions of the Theories. We can't produce New Data for the theories the way we would like because it's not practical.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is all true. But we can falsify alternative theories. Basically, these are the only theories left standing after rigorous research. That pretty much means that believing in some other reason for these things is unsupported by the observable world.

[Taraz]

[ QUOTE ]
This reminds me of a story one of my best friends told me a while ago about his aunt. She had a Ph.D from a prestigious university and every day after coming home from work she would drink. She was an alcoholic. He wasn't scared of her and she wasn't a mean drinker, but for a long while he never had the courage to ask her what exactly her doctorate was in or what her job was. Eventually he asked and he summarized her response for me. She said the highest paying job for many postgraduate degree-holders is in making announcements to the press and public - for an organization - so that they can reference and cite the material with false credibility. Almost always it involved unethical representation of data and solely was for the progression of some agenda. She was sickened by her job and so she drank to forget it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Would you mind sharing what kind of organization she worked for? Was it one that had business interests or was it a scientific organization?

[ QUOTE ]

In the ideal world, money would be meaningless to politicians and scientists. But they can still be bought. For every scientist developing a stem cell based cure for parkinsons, there's a scientist working for NASA whose sole job is to deny the existence of global warming as verbally as possible.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, this administration has been especially bad about casting doubt on the claims of science. It scares the crap out of me.

[ QUOTE ]

And as we all know, losing trust is easy, gaining it is difficult. How can the scientific community expect to hold the trust of the people when the same labels that are intended to set them apart are being abused to push political agendas?

[/ QUOTE ]

Very true. Also scary.

But we have to remember that other countries are doing research on these issues as well. It's a WORLDWIDE consensus. The best research from Europe and Asia confirm the scientific consensus within the U.S.

[Archon_Wing]

Also, statistics can seem cold and impersonal. "67% of [insert group that you are in] are more prone..." Hey, that's not me!

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
I think a lot of the mistrust has to do with the mistrust of the professions (doctor, lawyer). I mean, let's face it, a lawyer's job is to lie lie lie.

I mean the professionals go to college, and the scientists go to college, there's some bleedover there I guess.

just a thought.

[/ QUOTE ]

Scientists aren't capital P Professionals. I don't mean that in any sort of pejorative way.

[oe39]

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It's a little distressing to me that these people think they somehow know better than leading scientists WORLDWIDE.


[/ QUOTE ]

don't we think we know better than leading tobacco scientists or theologians?

(fwiw, i agree that man-made global warming is extremely likely)

[PLOlover]

[ QUOTE ]
Scientists aren't capital P Professionals. I don't mean that in any sort of pejorative way.

[/ QUOTE ]

true, but I meant sort of the common perception, how the little guy views it.

I got a better example though. Medical doctors definitely are professionals. How long did they support the tobacco industry and claim that smoking was good for you? How long did they buckle and claim, well, it isn't bad for you? How long then well, it is bad but no cancer? Of course finally the truth came out but it took a long time and people were lied to for a very long time.

[Taraz]

[ QUOTE ]

don't we think we know better than leading tobacco scientists or theologians?

(fwiw, i agree that man-made global warming is extremely likely)

[/ QUOTE ]

Theologians aren't scientists. I'm talking about factual claims that people have spent lives researching and are falsifiable. I'm not saying that we should believe all 'experts'. But when practically 100% of all peer-reviewed scientific journal articles support a claim, I am pretty inclined to believe it.

If you are talking about scientists who work for the tobacco companies when you say 'leading tobacco scientists', I have another reason for doubting their claims. Basically all scientists who don't work for the tobacco companies disagree with them. If the prevailing opinion in peer-reviewed scientific journals was that cigarettes aren't bad for you, I would believe it. Unfortunately it is entirely clear that they are terribly addictive and terribly detrimental to our health.

[godBoy]

People are very willing to dismiss something that they don't understand..

I know it's not directly related to your post, but creationism has the impact it does because there's a lot of people ignorant about science.

[Siegmund]

This ties in nicely with the "rejection of Sklansky" thread. People see scientists having a constructive debate -- for instance, about whether average temperatures will rise 2 or 4 degrees in the next century -- and conclude that since they can't even agree with each other they must not have anything worth the rest of us listening to. Or they hear scientists admit that something isn't completely certain to be right, and instead of hearing that there's a 99% chance of something being right, they say "either its right or its not, oh see, an idiot professor flipping a coin."

It's a fundamental problem, IMO, with the way almost all non-scientific argument is conducted. Political discussions, sermons, votes, legal trials, and a bunch of other things are conducted adversarially, each prsenter deliberately presenting convenient half-truths and concealing inconvenient half-truths. Some fool, ages ago, decided the having people from opposite positions take turns presenting half-truths was a good way of bringing the full truth to light, which it isn't.

People have no experience with the process of bringing a full and balanced truth to light. They don't see it happening around them, and they are not taught to do it - in fact, starting around age 10 or 12, people are taught that good articles/papers/etc must have a "thesis" as opposed to sticking to the facts. It's not just a mistrust of science, it's a flaw in how the vast majority of people, even thinking people, present information and expect to see it presented.

[oe39]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

don't we think we know better than leading tobacco scientists or theologians?

(fwiw, i agree that man-made global warming is extremely likely)

[/ QUOTE ]

Theologians aren't scientists. I'm talking about factual claims that people have spent lives researching and are falsifiable. I'm not saying that we should believe all 'experts'. But when practically 100% of all peer-reviewed scientific journal articles support a claim, I am pretty inclined to believe it.

If you are talking about scientists who work for the tobacco companies when you say 'leading tobacco scientists', I have another reason for doubting their claims. Basically all scientists who don't work for the tobacco companies disagree with them. If the prevailing opinion in peer-reviewed scientific journals was that cigarettes aren't bad for you, I would believe it. Unfortunately it is entirely clear that they are terribly addictive and terribly detrimental to our health.

[/ QUOTE ]

you're saying environmental scientists have no reason to make an environmental threat sound more dangerous or even fabricate one?

[PLOlover]

I think if I were arguing this I would go with the homosexuality being called good by the intellectuals, and of course it being viewed as deviancy by normal people and their "peasant mentality". I can't think of anything more in direct conflict. well maybe the intellectuals position that men and women are exactly the same, but that's not all of the intellectuals like the view on homosexuality is.

My point is how can the commoner trust the ivory tower when their morality is 180 off?

[Taraz]

[ QUOTE ]

you're saying environmental scientists have no reason to make an environmental threat sound more dangerous or even fabricate one?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not at all. But I am saying that it would be EXTREMELY difficult for them to have such a widespread consensus if they were working on fabricated claims. I believe there is still disagreement on how serious of a threat global warming is. There is basically no disagreement that man-made causes are contributing to this trend however.

I don't think people realize how many people work in this field. For this "conspiracy" to work, every single new professor who goes into climatology would have to be in on it. Every PhD student coming out would have to buy into the lie. There would be a HUGE incentive to buck the trend because you would gain instant name recognition and publicity if you could do a scientific study that backs up your claims.

[Philo]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Can you give an example of an established scientific claim that the general public rejects?

[/ QUOTE ]

homosexuality, although psychology is not a real science of course.

[/ QUOTE ]

Homosexuality is an established scientific claim that the general public rejects?

[Deorum]

Well, as you mention there is a difference between skepticism and misunderstanding. We should be skeptical of new data, as well as old data. We should insist on properly documented information. When somebody tries to convey information of which we have no knowledge, our response ought to be, "show me." It is important that we get the facts straight before we begin to invest resources on a potential problem. We can be concerned about a subject before we have all of the facts, but concern should lead to further investigation to ensure that whatever the potential problem is, is in fact a problem. Otherwise we will wind up prioritizing incorrectly, wasting resources of all kinds (time, human resources, energy, natural resources, etc.) as well as potentially causing damage to other situations.

One thing important to understand here is that for the most part scientific studies and the data collected in those studies are accurate. However, inaccuracies occur when people and organizations skew those results, take them out of context, and manipulate them to create misinformation to support whatever it is that they are claiming. This manipulation tarnishes the credibility of these organizations, and I think this is a large part of the reason why many people are so hesitant to believe what they hear. You have to understand that while we all should demand evidence for what we hold to be true, most of us don't. And many don't understand the difference between information and propaganda.

Many people want to have an agenda about which to be concerned. Humans like controversy. This is why when you open a newspaper, it is easy to find bad news. Bad news is what sells. Nobody wants to read a story titled, "Everything's Okay: There is Nothing Going On" because it is boring and offers nothing new. When a new story emerges, there are basically three types of people: those who do not care about it (either because they are lazy or it does not affect them), those who demand to see the evidence so they can understand and see it for themselves, and those who believe it and accept it as truth without any evidence. It is this last group of people who are searching for an agenda, any agenda, about which to be passionate. Let's call them lemmings.

The topic which came up on this thread has been environmentalism, and it is a great example, so let us use that. Certainly, envrionmental issues are important. Nobody wants our environment to deteriorate. However, there is a stunningly large amount of misinformation and hysteria about how bad our environment currently is. This is in large part due to our preference for bad news. Many environmental organizations propagate misinformation in both their own publications, as well as other forms of media, in order to gain support from the lemmings. Claiming that the world is in danger of coming to an end is just about the scariest and worst thing you can say. And the lemmings eat it up. What they do not realize is these organizations at their cores are really not driven so much by environmental issues, but are more driven by socialism, anti-government, and anti-corporatism. They use environmental issues to rally the lemmings for their political causes and as fund raisers, because these are the people who are most easily manipulated. They cannot manipulate those who do not care, nor can they manipulate those who check their claims. But they can manipulate people who are looking for an agenda without actually understanding it.

These lemmings' typical reaction to anything to the contrary of what they "know" to be true is then to become defensive. Anything that could possibly contradict what they stand for must be inaccurate. They become infuriated. They adopt the motto, "anything for the environment." They refuse to consider a cost-benefit analysis. In its place, they claim that if it's good for the environment, it should be done. Nevermind the cost. Nevermind how much it will hinder the growth of the human species. Nevermind the other problems going on in the world. And certainly nevermind any evidence to the contrary. This is also a large part of where that mistrust comes from. People who believe what they want to believe, and who do not know the difference between propaganda and information in the first place. These people know that there is misinformation out there, they just do not understand from whom it is coming or how to tell the difference.

I wanted to post more, as well as some examples, but I do not have the time to cite anything right now. I'll check back in when I can.

[PLOlover]

[ QUOTE ]
Homosexuality is an established scientific claim that the general public rejects?

[/ QUOTE ]

ask almost anyone with an advanced degree and they'll tell you it is perfectly normal and everyone should consider it normal and ask any poor uneducated person and they'll tell you it is bad and something is wrong with such a person.

[UATrewqaz]

[ QUOTE ]
normal

[/ QUOTE ]

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

http://www.sworddragon.com/passions/images/montoya2.jpg

[Siegmund]

"Almost anyone" strikes me as a significant overbid, too.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
but the last time they did this, with the whole "global cooling" scenario in the 70's, the prevailing idea was, in fact, chopped off and thrown aside.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sorry can you point to one single NAS or SCOPE report that predicted global cooling? oh ya... there aren't any.

The problem with science is that the mainstream media is willing to lie their ass off about what scientists are actually saying. In the 70's Newsweek lied cuz it fit their liberal agenda. Now the WSJ is lying cuz it fits their conservative agenda.

The scientists tend to get caught in the middle of this mess . What makes the situation even more disgusting is when a physicist (like the one I'm replying to) gets fooled by this nonsense.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Something that has been bothering me lately is the general mistrust of scientific and academic research in American society...when there is a consensus among the experts in a given field, it seems like we should defer to their judgment. So why doesn't this happen?



[/ QUOTE ]

Can you give an example of an established scientific claim that the general public rejects?

[/ QUOTE ]

The 3 examples have been given, Human caused Global Warming, Evolution, and the Big Bang.

That's not a long list.

[/ QUOTE ]

The list is really long.

Atrazine
DDT
Alar (actress meryl streep single handedly destroyed the scientific community)
tobacco for 20 years despite the obvious connection
CFC/Ozone - for a long time at least
Dangers of certain "natural" organic foods
According to Rduke, the dangers of MDMA
Species extinction
There are quite a few people that think the Grand Canyon is less than 6K years old.
The transitional fossil record.
Ethanol fuel from corn
Peak oil (consensus is constantly twisted beyond recognition)
The utility of Jack-12 and the lower tertiary gulf oil wells
A lot of gun control laws are passed despite claims from the CDC and the FBI that certain laws don't do a damn thing. I'm pretty sure the waiting period law is one of those.
Hydrogen fuel cells
Electric cars

That's just a few off of the top of my head.

[Taraz]

[ QUOTE ]

The problem with science is that the mainstream media is willing to lie their ass off about what scientists are actually saying. In the 70's Newsweek lied cuz it fit their liberal agenda. Now the WSJ is lying cuz it fits their conservative agenda.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think this part is pretty key. The media does cloud issues either because they have a hidden agenda or they are trying to dumb it down for their audience.

But when there is an internationally recognized scientific consensus I feel like we should be past the point of media distortion. The vast, vast majority of scientists whose expertise we should trust believe in evolution and anthropogenic global warming. Somehow this doesn't seem to matter.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

The problem with science is that the mainstream media is willing to lie their ass off about what scientists are actually saying. In the 70's Newsweek lied cuz it fit their liberal agenda. Now the WSJ is lying cuz it fits their conservative agenda.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think this part is pretty key. The media does cloud issues either because they have a hidden agenda or they are trying to dumb it down for their audience.

But when there is an internationally recognized scientific consensus I feel like we should be past the point of media distortion. The vast, vast majority of scientists whose expertise we should trust believe in evolution and anthropogenic global warming. Somehow this doesn't seem to matter.

[/ QUOTE ]

Cloud stuff? They make facts up. Here is a WSJ article that made facts up about the recent IPCC report lacking Mann's hockey stick:
http://logicalscience.blogspot.com/2007/06/wall-street-journal-op-eds-distorting_06.html

Here is Alexander Cockburn citing an "expert" that also makes facts up. Facts that are easily debunked with 10 seconds of google searching.
http://logicalscience.blogspot.com/2007/06/alexander-cockburn-alexander-cockburn.html

Heck even Disney faked the suicide acts of lemmings.
http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.htm

This isn't "clouding" this is a fabrication of news.

[Taraz]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

The problem with science is that the mainstream media is willing to lie their ass off about what scientists are actually saying. In the 70's Newsweek lied cuz it fit their liberal agenda. Now the WSJ is lying cuz it fits their conservative agenda.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think this part is pretty key. The media does cloud issues either because they have a hidden agenda or they are trying to dumb it down for their audience.

But when there is an internationally recognized scientific consensus I feel like we should be past the point of media distortion. The vast, vast majority of scientists whose expertise we should trust believe in evolution and anthropogenic global warming. Somehow this doesn't seem to matter.

[/ QUOTE ]

Cloud stuff? They make facts up. Here is a WSJ article that made facts up about the recent IPCC report lacking Mann's hockey stick:
http://logicalscience.blogspot.com/2007/06/wall-street-journal-op-eds-distorting_06.html

Here is Alexander Cockburn citing an "expert" that also makes facts up. Facts that are easily debunked with 10 seconds of google searching.
http://logicalscience.blogspot.com/2007/06/alexander-cockburn-alexander-cockburn.html

Heck even Disney faked the suicide acts of lemmings.
http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.htm

This isn't "clouding" this is a fabrication of news.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with you. I'm just saying that once we hear about what the IPCC is and how it was organized, shouldn't we side with them instead of the Wall Street Journal? Why don't we?

[PLOlover]

[ QUOTE ]
Quote:
normal



"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

[/ QUOTE ]

maybe a better example is parental disciplining. the intellectuals say never spank, never scold, time out at worst, put your kids on drugs when they don't behave ... , when the peasant mentality is to discipline kids including spanking and keep them off drugs.

So you can see the clear difference in values there.

[Taraz]

[ QUOTE ]

maybe a better example is parental disciplining. the intellectuals say never spank, never scold, time out at worst, put your kids on drugs when they don't behave ... , when the peasant mentality is to discipline kids including spanking and keep them off drugs.

So you can see the clear difference in values there.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you have anything to back this up with? I've spent a good deal of the last seven years in and around prestigious universities with lots of 'intellectuals'. I've never heard anyone say to never scold your kids, that time outs are the worst punishment you should dole out, or that drugs were the way to go.

I understand that you think this is true, but why? How many 'intellectuals' have you actually spoken to who hold this viewpoint.

[borisp]

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This ties in nicely with the "rejection of Sklansky" thread. People see scientists having a constructive debate -- for instance, about whether average temperatures will rise 2 or 4 degrees in the next century -- and conclude that since they can't even agree with each other they must not have anything worth the rest of us listening to. Or they hear scientists admit that something isn't completely certain to be right, and instead of hearing that there's a 99% chance of something being right, they say "either its right or its not, oh see, an idiot professor flipping a coin."

It's a fundamental problem, IMO, with the way almost all non-scientific argument is conducted. Political discussions, sermons, votes, legal trials, and a bunch of other things are conducted adversarially, each prsenter deliberately presenting convenient half-truths and concealing inconvenient half-truths. Some fool, ages ago, decided the having people from opposite positions take turns presenting half-truths was a good way of bringing the full truth to light, which it isn't.

People have no experience with the process of bringing a full and balanced truth to light. They don't see it happening around them, and they are not taught to do it - in fact, starting around age 10 or 12, people are taught that good articles/papers/etc must have a "thesis" as opposed to sticking to the facts. It's not just a mistrust of science, it's a flaw in how the vast majority of people, even thinking people, present information and expect to see it presented.

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This post should be framed and hung on the wall of every humanities department of every university.

Seriously though, this message is crucial, and it is exactly what is needed to combat the problem of public mistrust. Nice work.

[PLOlover]

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Do you have anything to back this up with? I've spent a good deal of the last seven years in and around prestigious universities with lots of 'intellectuals'. I've never heard anyone say to never scold your kids, that time outs are the worst punishment you should dole out, or that drugs were the way to go.

I understand that you think this is true, but why? How many 'intellectuals' have you actually spoken to who hold this viewpoint.

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I'm talking about the "party line", not individual viewpoints.
I mean a lot of it has been codified into law, re: not spanking, "forced" drugging of children, etc.

[MidGe]

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..."forced" drugging of children, etc.

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Do you mean "forcing" children to take antibiotics because they have a bacterial infection? If not, what exactly do you mean, doctor?

[PLOlover]

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Do you mean "forcing" children to take antibiotics because they have a bacterial infection? If not, what exactly do you mean, doctor?

[/ QUOTE ]
the whole ritalin thing.

[revots33]

I also think most people are not very science or math literate. It's easy to distrust something you don't understand completely, because all the power is in the hands of those who do understand it. Look at something like DNA evidence in the OJ Simpson trial. Scientific evidence that PROVED his guilt - and it went right over the jurors' heads. It was too complicated for them to understand so they just ignored it, and probably never trusted it.

[wacki]

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I also think most people are not very science or math literate.

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You can say that again. We even have a few Ph.D.'s on 2p2 that screw up undergraduate material in their own field. Can we say "cheap labor"?

[Taraz]

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I'm talking about the "party line", not individual viewpoints.
I mean a lot of it has been codified into law, re: not spanking, "forced" drugging of children, etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

And where have you heard this "party line"? Who advocates these viewpoints? I still don't understand where you're getting this.

With regard to Ritalin, my experience has been that really rich people give it to their kids, not 'intellectuals'.