9 ms·

Dan Rather: Now, More Than Ever, We Must Stand Up for Science

137 points by lucabenazzi 10y ago

melling 10y ago
Funny, today on the Drudge Report, I read that we've had record cooling in the past 8 months. http://realclimatescience.com/2016/11/record-global-cooling-over-the-last-eight-months/ http://realclimatescience.com/2016/11/record-global-cooling-... There's a large online anti-global warming movement that needs to be addressed. Actually, there's an anti-everyhing movement (e.g vaccines). The general public is not going to know who to believe. Do more people read Drudge or Scientific American?
- qntty 10y ago
  What we need not better debate, but better dogma. It shouldn't be necessary to argue that climate change is real every time the topic comes up. Just like we dogmatically accept that cigarettes cause cancer, we should dogmatically accept that climate change is happening and it's caused by us. The science that establishes this fact is far beyond anything that the general public should be expected to understand. I don't understand the first thing about lung cancer, yet it doesn't bother me to accept that cigarettes cause cancer. The general public needs to be comfortable accepting this fact without proof. The world is too complex for everyone to understand every issue.
  - nonbel 10y ago
    >"we dogmatically accept that cigarettes cause cancer" The truth is that using the colloquial definition of "cause", everything seems to "cause" cancer: >"These considerations of mechanism suggest that at chronic doses close to the toxic dose, any chemical, whether synthetic or natural, and whether genotoxic or nongenotoxic, is a likely rodent and human carcinogen. Not all chemicals would be expected to be carcinogens at high doses; the MTD may not be reached (101) or the chemical may be toxic without causing cell killing or mitogenesis." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC54830/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC54830/ There is value in having a nuanced understanding. For example, just as a kind of random additional fact, did you realize lung cancer is a pretty common diagnosis even amongst non-smokers? "if lung cancer in non-smokers had its own separate category, it would rank among the top 10 fatal cancers in the United States." http://www.cancer.org/cancer/news/features/why-lung-cancer-strikes-nonsmokers http://www.cancer.org/cancer/news/features/why-lung-cancer-s... What about the reports that the most common time for smokers to be diagnosed with lung cancer is right after quitting: "Several reports indicate that the risk of lung cancer increases slightly for a short period of time after cessation of smoking while the risk of adverse cardiovascular events drops immediately." http://www.medical-hypotheses.com/article/S0306-9877%2805%2900170-2/abstract http://www.medical-hypotheses.com/article/S0306-9877%2805%29...
    - intended 10y ago
      How does that build/refute the position that dogma is required to deal with anti-science in public discourse. I ask because while I think its an awful conclusion, I've seen and experimented enough for more than 2 decades, to recognize this same appeal from the days people first started spreading climate FUD which has metastized to what we see today. The conclusion is that this is NOT a scientific communication problem - because science has been DESPERATELY trying to do that in whatever fair and logical manner they can. It's been met by concerted efforts to confuse, muddle, emotionalize, subvert, defund, ridicule, and physically attack people on what used to be "boring nerd territory". This is a political/emotional problem, and for that, isn't dogma a horrid but simplistic solution.
      - nonbel 10y ago
        >"dogma is required to deal with anti-science in public discourse." You want a ministry of science devoted to spreading dogma? Do people still know about the book 1984?
        intended 10y ago
        No I don't. I am well aware of 1984, and I am also keenly aware that many people seem to be applying it like a manual as opposed to a warning. Its easy to tell me, a random person who mentions that he thinks its a horrid solution, "remember 1984". I am already on this site, and already disposed to that vein of thought. Its not that effective at countering, or dealing with people who are not here, some of whom are coders who have never read those books, or think the books are over hyped.
    - qntty 10y ago
      >There is value in having a nuanced understanding No doubt. People should try to understand the nuance of things. But there's a difference between understanding nuance and actually trying to refute expert opinion using specious and simplistic arguments. Non-experts will never be able to understand all the science needed to establish a judgement such as "humans are causing climate change". It requires training in atmospheric science and years of experience as a scientist. There's a different between better understanding the conclusions of medical researchers and questioning the validity of their opinion. Sure, there is no doubt areas where there is disagreement and more research is needed, but it's useless for an amateur to judge those issues. The only information that the general public really needs about climate change is the opinion of experts. Sure, they can learn more if they are inclined, I hope they do. But when amateurs start questioning the validity of experts' opinion, we are hopelessly lost. An amateur will never be able to judge the validity of an experts opinion on an issue that requires expertise. Never. Even Martin Luther wasn't some random lay person when he questioned the doctrines of the church. He had specialized knowledge of theology and used it to engage in the discussion the same way a member of the church would.
- veidr 10y ago
  Sadly, you probably already intuitively know the answer. Scientific American annual circulation[1]: 425,000 Drudge Report monthly unique visitors[2]: 25,000,000 [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_American https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_American [2]: https://www.quantcast.com/drudgereport.com?country=US https://www.quantcast.com/drudgereport.com?country=US
  - finid 10y ago
    You're comparing the circulation of the physical magazine to online metrics of Drudge Report. Not good, my friend, not good. Do the right thing, and compare unique visitors of SciAm website to that of Drudge Report.
    - veidr 10y ago
      OK, point taken... so maybe still roughly 25:1 in favor of science isn't real? [1] [1]: https://www.quantcast.com/scientificamerican.com https://www.quantcast.com/scientificamerican.com
- hackuser 10y ago
  > There's a large online anti-global warming movement that needs to be addressed. Actually, there's an anti-everyhing movement (e.g vaccines). The general public is not going to know who to believe. IMHO the problem is that the conservative leaders (political and otherwise) and media have made a norm, a social requirement, out of ideology uber alles - over facts, wisdom, respect, the welfare and lives of others, and even democracy. It's not the first time that's happened in history, but the results often have been very bad. We can no longer stand by and let it pass politely and passively; that only further legitimizes it. I don't object to conservative ideas, but ideological movements of any stripe are a danger to society, and the current one exists among conservatives.
nonbel 10y ago
The impression that schools and media gives of how "science" is being implemented these days is inaccurate enough that I would call it propaganda. The reality is that the research literature is filled with over 90% junk, and a small percent of value, just like everything else. The funding and publication system is set up to force this junk percentage as high as the public will tolerate, so I do not think this "positive-spin" type of propaganda is a good thing.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- lordCarbonFiber 10y ago
  I think your interpretation of the situation is a bit off. The 90% number, best I can tell, comes from a rather limited meta study which found the papers they tried to replicate had a low repoducablity rate. Note this doesn't immediately make them "junk" just adds another data point in support of the null hypothesis or in some cases points to the existence of confounding factors [0]. Looking at research literature at the single paper level is the realm of pulp science and media puff pieces. In terms of the larger field having a broad corpus to check your results against gives context to an experiment's result and makes it easier to weed out outliers. It's my opinion that a funding system that ends up with more noise than ideal is still a better state than just giving the reins to the pundits of the world who make conclusions without even pretending to have any experimental foundation. [0]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/08/27/trouble-in-science-massive-effort-to-reproduce-100-experimental-results-succeeds-only-36-times/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2...
  - nonbel 10y ago
    >"this doesn't immediately make them "junk" just adds another data point in support of the null hypothesis" Unless the null hypothesis happens to correspond to someone's actual hypothesis, chances are your study was designed to be junk from the beginning and anything of value that occurred was despite that. For example, no one actually believes humans have exactly zero impact on climate, or smoking has exactly zero impact on cancer incidence. Yet the vast majority of studies on these topics will be testing those "hypotheses". That is the junk.
treehau5 10y ago
Science needs another ally as well - we also need wholesome support of science. Not just pick and choosing to support a particular ideology, liberal or conservative. For some (my friends on the right, whom I understand and have empathy for more than your average HN reader), scientific thought unfortunately has been so closely tied to liberal ideologies that middle America sees as destructive to families and local economies. Additionally, there is growing intolerance for scientists to hold opinions of faith or conservative ideals in our universities. This is unacceptable. (This is a great article on the matter http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confession-of-liberal-intolerance.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confessio...) In short, we need to stop treating that being "scientific" and "liberal" go hand-in-hand. They don't. To quote the great Serj Tankian: Science fails to recognize the single most potent element of human existence
- veidr 10y ago
  > growing intolerance for scientists to hold opinions of faith or conservative ideals Conservative ideals and science don't have any inherent conflict, but uhm, that other thing...
  - mordocai 10y ago
    Some of the greatest scientific discoveries in history were made by people thinking they were glorifying god by doing their work. Faith and science go together just fine, and I say this as a hard atheist.
    - gbrs 10y ago
      Doesn't that depend on the religion though? Like evangelicals don't think human made global warming is real because humans can't alter gods creation. I think most people will accept the evidence as long as it doesn't go against some of their core beliefs (which can be expanded beyond religion). It's just that for a lot of scientific discoveries there is at least one group that refuses to accept it.
      - 10y ago
lordnacho 10y ago
I heard the incoming Vice President, Mike Pence, does not believe in evolution. In fact there's a video of him, admittedly a long while ago now, making a speech where he seems to not understand what the scientific meaning of "theory" is. Are people not concerned about this at all? People in high positions ought to know basic things about how science functions, yet as the article points out, barely a word was said about science. As a European, I think if someone went on a show like Question Time (a UK live debate show) and revealed they didn't believe in evolution, they would be finished in politics. And there would be even more mockery if they said they thought the earth was 6000 years old (though I don't know if Pence believes that).
- SonicSoul 10y ago
  he also wanted to spend tax payer money on 'Conversion Therapy' for gay people. This is absurd and a huge step back for us. http://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2016/jul/28/gavin-newsom/true-mike-pence-advocated-conversion-therapy/ http://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2016/jul/28/...
- tbskm 10y ago
  There are plenty of Americans who would disqualify a candidate that doesn't believe in evolution, global warming, or some other widely known scientific fact. Unfortunately, there are just as many ill-informed Americans that share these views. It's sad and depressing, and is usually just the result of being in a conservative bubble. If you live in rural America, your friends and family all regurgitate the same things they hear from Fox News, Glenn Beck, Alex Jones, Breitbart, and other conservative sources, which, for whatever reason, seem to hold a lot of scientific things in contempt. They're ignorant, sure, but it's hard to see things from another perspective if you've never really been exposed to anything else.
  - jff 10y ago
    > If you live in rural America, your friends and family all regurgitate the same things they hear from Fox News, Glenn Beck, Alex Jones, Breitbart, and other conservative sources It's funny that conservatives 'regurgitate', while liberals are simply repeating things they've thought about deeply after hearing John Oliver say them.
touleier 10y ago
Taking Dan Rather's advice on a responsible attitude to science is like going to Bill Cosby for dating advice, or asking Rolf Harris to run your kindergarten. Booted from CBS in disgrace for confusing journalism with character assassination. Read the original CBS report. "This man is a truth teller". Indeed. Here is the full report. http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/complete_report/CBS_Report.pdf http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/complete_report/CBS_Report...
- MrZongle2 10y ago
  I'm glad somebody brought this up. Rather is no Cronkite, Murrow or Brinkley: the Killian documents debacle demonstrated that he was sloppy at best, and was more interested in pushing a political agenda than digging for the truth. That's the antithesis of science. This doesn't invalidate the need for climate change research -- not by far! -- but he shouldn't be the poster boy for any fact-based cause at this point.
  - cnnsucks 10y ago
    This doesn't deserve down mod. If Hacker News is going to cite Dan fucking Rather about anything then pointing out the intellectual fraud this guy is guilty of is 100% legitimate.
- hackuser 10y ago
  I don't see one mistake (assuming it is that; I don't know the details) in a long career as discrediting him, or else everyone is discredited. We have nobody left. Integrity isn't binary; it's not all or nothing.
  - touleier 10y ago
    If you don't know the details, that is easily remedied by reading the CBS Report, which I linked to. It is free. I followed this controversy at the time, and it is very revealing precisely in those details, which I read in full as soon as it came out. Rather was guilty of assisting fraud in the service of a cause, no other conclusion is reasonable. That certainly disqualifies him as a serious commentator going forward. Trust matters. Yet now he is being resurrected to lecture us about science.
CWuestefeld 10y ago
These claims that we must do what science dictates are self-serving, and the ongoing chant is getting really tiresome. Science does not lead inexorably to policy. Science is only the first step, in how it allows us to understand the world around us. What we want to do about that is an entirely value-based decision. Deciding to implement policy demands filtering that understanding through a lens of our collective values as a society. Those values are fluid, and very frequently in controversy. It seems like the demands to "follow science" are an attempt to sweep some of that controversy under the carpet. In the case of climate change, it's pretending that there's cost/benefit analysis to be done. It ignores the possibility that the cost of doing something will exceed the likely damage expected. (I'm not saying that's the case, I'm just saying that folks are trying to skip that part of the conversation) It pops up in other cases, too. Virtually every economist will tell you that free trade is almost always a net positive for all involved. It harms a few, but on net the entire society is much better off. If we stopped with the science, then we should remove all tariffs and be done with it. But before we do so, there's still a moral question to be resolved: if a few people are paying the price to improve our overall economy, do we owe any debt to them, to make them whole afterwards? So stop pretending that a lack of the policy you want demonstrates that we're scientifically illiterate. Instead, recognize that the science can only inform our debate over the values.
- millettjon 10y ago
  If a large portion of the population does not value or understand science, how can you have a rational debate on values?
  - nsxwolf 10y ago
    Let's say that eventually it is the consensus of the scientific community that things like consciousness, pain and free will are just illusions, and therefore, human rights are an outdated concept, and future policy decisions should reflect that consensus. You'd resist those policy proposals, and I think most people would. You'd base that resistance on your values - values, which in this case at least, you did NOT derive from the scientific consensus. My point is there are non-scientific origins for value systems, and they are more real and valid than scientifically derived ones - science can only give you facts about the material universe.
simosx 10y ago
Understanding science requires some scientific mindset. The climate scientists talk about 1 degree Celsius increase in global temperatures and some react with "I am fine if the temperature would increase by a degree Fahrenheit". Instead, what a person should realise is that an increase in global temperature of a mere 1C is shorthand to trillions of trillions of Joules (energy).
r_smart 10y ago
Most of the comments here are focused on climate change denial and smattering of evolution denial. It often gets painted that science denial (and evolution denial) is something that conservatives do, that liberals are the tribe of science. Here's a link to a talk from Jon Haidt that puts a different perspective on that [0]. I don't want to do his eloquence a disservice, but suffice to say, every group has their own flavors of science denial. The discourse just seems to mostly focus on calling out the conservative forms of it while ignoring the liberal forms. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9kJkuuedw0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9kJkuuedw0
jwatte 10y ago
It is said that, in a war of ideology, you cannot bring facts. But, what if facts are your ideology? This is the conundrum we're facing.

137 points by lucabenazzi 10y ago

Funny, today on the Drudge Report, I read that we've had record cooling in the past 8 months. http://realclimatescience.com/2016/11/record-global-cooling-over-the-last-eight-months/ http://realclimatescience.com/2016/11/record-global-cooling-... There's a large online anti-global warming movement that needs to be addressed. Actually, there's an anti-everyhing movement (e.g vaccines). The general public is not going to know who to believe. Do more people read Drudge or Scientific American?

qntty 10y ago
What we need not better debate, but better dogma. It shouldn't be necessary to argue that climate change is real every time the topic comes up. Just like we dogmatically accept that cigarettes cause cancer, we should dogmatically accept that climate change is happening and it's caused by us. The science that establishes this fact is far beyond anything that the general public should be expected to understand. I don't understand the first thing about lung cancer, yet it doesn't bother me to accept that cigarettes cause cancer. The general public needs to be comfortable accepting this fact without proof. The world is too complex for everyone to understand every issue.
- nonbel 10y ago
  >"we dogmatically accept that cigarettes cause cancer" The truth is that using the colloquial definition of "cause", everything seems to "cause" cancer: >"These considerations of mechanism suggest that at chronic doses close to the toxic dose, any chemical, whether synthetic or natural, and whether genotoxic or nongenotoxic, is a likely rodent and human carcinogen. Not all chemicals would be expected to be carcinogens at high doses; the MTD may not be reached (101) or the chemical may be toxic without causing cell killing or mitogenesis." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC54830/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC54830/ There is value in having a nuanced understanding. For example, just as a kind of random additional fact, did you realize lung cancer is a pretty common diagnosis even amongst non-smokers? "if lung cancer in non-smokers had its own separate category, it would rank among the top 10 fatal cancers in the United States." http://www.cancer.org/cancer/news/features/why-lung-cancer-strikes-nonsmokers http://www.cancer.org/cancer/news/features/why-lung-cancer-s... What about the reports that the most common time for smokers to be diagnosed with lung cancer is right after quitting: "Several reports indicate that the risk of lung cancer increases slightly for a short period of time after cessation of smoking while the risk of adverse cardiovascular events drops immediately." http://www.medical-hypotheses.com/article/S0306-9877%2805%2900170-2/abstract http://www.medical-hypotheses.com/article/S0306-9877%2805%29...
  - intended 10y ago
    How does that build/refute the position that dogma is required to deal with anti-science in public discourse. I ask because while I think its an awful conclusion, I've seen and experimented enough for more than 2 decades, to recognize this same appeal from the days people first started spreading climate FUD which has metastized to what we see today. The conclusion is that this is NOT a scientific communication problem - because science has been DESPERATELY trying to do that in whatever fair and logical manner they can. It's been met by concerted efforts to confuse, muddle, emotionalize, subvert, defund, ridicule, and physically attack people on what used to be "boring nerd territory". This is a political/emotional problem, and for that, isn't dogma a horrid but simplistic solution.
    - nonbel 10y ago
      >"dogma is required to deal with anti-science in public discourse." You want a ministry of science devoted to spreading dogma? Do people still know about the book 1984?
      - intended 10y ago
        No I don't. I am well aware of 1984, and I am also keenly aware that many people seem to be applying it like a manual as opposed to a warning. Its easy to tell me, a random person who mentions that he thinks its a horrid solution, "remember 1984". I am already on this site, and already disposed to that vein of thought. Its not that effective at countering, or dealing with people who are not here, some of whom are coders who have never read those books, or think the books are over hyped.
  - qntty 10y ago
    >There is value in having a nuanced understanding No doubt. People should try to understand the nuance of things. But there's a difference between understanding nuance and actually trying to refute expert opinion using specious and simplistic arguments. Non-experts will never be able to understand all the science needed to establish a judgement such as "humans are causing climate change". It requires training in atmospheric science and years of experience as a scientist. There's a different between better understanding the conclusions of medical researchers and questioning the validity of their opinion. Sure, there is no doubt areas where there is disagreement and more research is needed, but it's useless for an amateur to judge those issues. The only information that the general public really needs about climate change is the opinion of experts. Sure, they can learn more if they are inclined, I hope they do. But when amateurs start questioning the validity of experts' opinion, we are hopelessly lost. An amateur will never be able to judge the validity of an experts opinion on an issue that requires expertise. Never. Even Martin Luther wasn't some random lay person when he questioned the doctrines of the church. He had specialized knowledge of theology and used it to engage in the discussion the same way a member of the church would.
veidr 10y ago
Sadly, you probably already intuitively know the answer. Scientific American annual circulation[1]: 425,000 Drudge Report monthly unique visitors[2]: 25,000,000 [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_American https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_American [2]: https://www.quantcast.com/drudgereport.com?country=US https://www.quantcast.com/drudgereport.com?country=US
- finid 10y ago
  You're comparing the circulation of the physical magazine to online metrics of Drudge Report. Not good, my friend, not good. Do the right thing, and compare unique visitors of SciAm website to that of Drudge Report.
  - veidr 10y ago
    OK, point taken... so maybe still roughly 25:1 in favor of science isn't real? [1] [1]: https://www.quantcast.com/scientificamerican.com https://www.quantcast.com/scientificamerican.com
hackuser 10y ago
> There's a large online anti-global warming movement that needs to be addressed. Actually, there's an anti-everyhing movement (e.g vaccines). The general public is not going to know who to believe. IMHO the problem is that the conservative leaders (political and otherwise) and media have made a norm, a social requirement, out of ideology uber alles - over facts, wisdom, respect, the welfare and lives of others, and even democracy. It's not the first time that's happened in history, but the results often have been very bad. We can no longer stand by and let it pass politely and passively; that only further legitimizes it. I don't object to conservative ideas, but ideological movements of any stripe are a danger to society, and the current one exists among conservatives.

nonbel 10y ago

The impression that schools and media gives of how "science" is being implemented these days is inaccurate enough that I would call it propaganda. The reality is that the research literature is filled with over 90% junk, and a small percent of value, just like everything else. The funding and publication system is set up to force this junk percentage as high as the public will tolerate, so I do not think this "positive-spin" type of propaganda is a good thing.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
lordCarbonFiber 10y ago
I think your interpretation of the situation is a bit off. The 90% number, best I can tell, comes from a rather limited meta study which found the papers they tried to replicate had a low repoducablity rate. Note this doesn't immediately make them "junk" just adds another data point in support of the null hypothesis or in some cases points to the existence of confounding factors [0]. Looking at research literature at the single paper level is the realm of pulp science and media puff pieces. In terms of the larger field having a broad corpus to check your results against gives context to an experiment's result and makes it easier to weed out outliers. It's my opinion that a funding system that ends up with more noise than ideal is still a better state than just giving the reins to the pundits of the world who make conclusions without even pretending to have any experimental foundation. [0]https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/08/27/trouble-in-science-massive-effort-to-reproduce-100-experimental-results-succeeds-only-36-times/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2...
- nonbel 10y ago
  >"this doesn't immediately make them "junk" just adds another data point in support of the null hypothesis" Unless the null hypothesis happens to correspond to someone's actual hypothesis, chances are your study was designed to be junk from the beginning and anything of value that occurred was despite that. For example, no one actually believes humans have exactly zero impact on climate, or smoking has exactly zero impact on cancer incidence. Yet the vast majority of studies on these topics will be testing those "hypotheses". That is the junk.

treehau5 10y ago

Science needs another ally as well - we also need wholesome support of science. Not just pick and choosing to support a particular ideology, liberal or conservative. For some (my friends on the right, whom I understand and have empathy for more than your average HN reader), scientific thought unfortunately has been so closely tied to liberal ideologies that middle America sees as destructive to families and local economies. Additionally, there is growing intolerance for scientists to hold opinions of faith or conservative ideals in our universities. This is unacceptable. (This is a great article on the matter http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confession-of-liberal-intolerance.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confessio...) In short, we need to stop treating that being "scientific" and "liberal" go hand-in-hand. They don't. To quote the great Serj Tankian: Science fails to recognize the single most potent element of human existence

veidr 10y ago
> growing intolerance for scientists to hold opinions of faith or conservative ideals Conservative ideals and science don't have any inherent conflict, but uhm, that other thing...
- mordocai 10y ago
  Some of the greatest scientific discoveries in history were made by people thinking they were glorifying god by doing their work. Faith and science go together just fine, and I say this as a hard atheist.
  - gbrs 10y ago
    Doesn't that depend on the religion though? Like evangelicals don't think human made global warming is real because humans can't alter gods creation. I think most people will accept the evidence as long as it doesn't go against some of their core beliefs (which can be expanded beyond religion). It's just that for a lot of scientific discoveries there is at least one group that refuses to accept it.
    - 10y ago

lordnacho 10y ago

I heard the incoming Vice President, Mike Pence, does not believe in evolution. In fact there's a video of him, admittedly a long while ago now, making a speech where he seems to not understand what the scientific meaning of "theory" is. Are people not concerned about this at all? People in high positions ought to know basic things about how science functions, yet as the article points out, barely a word was said about science. As a European, I think if someone went on a show like Question Time (a UK live debate show) and revealed they didn't believe in evolution, they would be finished in politics. And there would be even more mockery if they said they thought the earth was 6000 years old (though I don't know if Pence believes that).

SonicSoul 10y ago
he also wanted to spend tax payer money on 'Conversion Therapy' for gay people. This is absurd and a huge step back for us. http://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2016/jul/28/gavin-newsom/true-mike-pence-advocated-conversion-therapy/ http://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2016/jul/28/...
tbskm 10y ago
There are plenty of Americans who would disqualify a candidate that doesn't believe in evolution, global warming, or some other widely known scientific fact. Unfortunately, there are just as many ill-informed Americans that share these views. It's sad and depressing, and is usually just the result of being in a conservative bubble. If you live in rural America, your friends and family all regurgitate the same things they hear from Fox News, Glenn Beck, Alex Jones, Breitbart, and other conservative sources, which, for whatever reason, seem to hold a lot of scientific things in contempt. They're ignorant, sure, but it's hard to see things from another perspective if you've never really been exposed to anything else.
- jff 10y ago
  > If you live in rural America, your friends and family all regurgitate the same things they hear from Fox News, Glenn Beck, Alex Jones, Breitbart, and other conservative sources It's funny that conservatives 'regurgitate', while liberals are simply repeating things they've thought about deeply after hearing John Oliver say them.

touleier 10y ago

Taking Dan Rather's advice on a responsible attitude to science is like going to Bill Cosby for dating advice, or asking Rolf Harris to run your kindergarten. Booted from CBS in disgrace for confusing journalism with character assassination. Read the original CBS report. "This man is a truth teller". Indeed. Here is the full report. http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/complete_report/CBS_Report.pdf http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/complete_report/CBS_Report...

MrZongle2 10y ago
I'm glad somebody brought this up. Rather is no Cronkite, Murrow or Brinkley: the Killian documents debacle demonstrated that he was sloppy at best, and was more interested in pushing a political agenda than digging for the truth. That's the antithesis of science. This doesn't invalidate the need for climate change research -- not by far! -- but he shouldn't be the poster boy for any fact-based cause at this point.
- cnnsucks 10y ago
  This doesn't deserve down mod. If Hacker News is going to cite Dan fucking Rather about anything then pointing out the intellectual fraud this guy is guilty of is 100% legitimate.
hackuser 10y ago
I don't see one mistake (assuming it is that; I don't know the details) in a long career as discrediting him, or else everyone is discredited. We have nobody left. Integrity isn't binary; it's not all or nothing.
- touleier 10y ago
  If you don't know the details, that is easily remedied by reading the CBS Report, which I linked to. It is free. I followed this controversy at the time, and it is very revealing precisely in those details, which I read in full as soon as it came out. Rather was guilty of assisting fraud in the service of a cause, no other conclusion is reasonable. That certainly disqualifies him as a serious commentator going forward. Trust matters. Yet now he is being resurrected to lecture us about science.

CWuestefeld 10y ago

These claims that we must do what science dictates are self-serving, and the ongoing chant is getting really tiresome. Science does not lead inexorably to policy. Science is only the first step, in how it allows us to understand the world around us. What we want to do about that is an entirely value-based decision. Deciding to implement policy demands filtering that understanding through a lens of our collective values as a society. Those values are fluid, and very frequently in controversy. It seems like the demands to "follow science" are an attempt to sweep some of that controversy under the carpet. In the case of climate change, it's pretending that there's cost/benefit analysis to be done. It ignores the possibility that the cost of doing something will exceed the likely damage expected. (I'm not saying that's the case, I'm just saying that folks are trying to skip that part of the conversation) It pops up in other cases, too. Virtually every economist will tell you that free trade is almost always a net positive for all involved. It harms a few, but on net the entire society is much better off. If we stopped with the science, then we should remove all tariffs and be done with it. But before we do so, there's still a moral question to be resolved: if a few people are paying the price to improve our overall economy, do we owe any debt to them, to make them whole afterwards? So stop pretending that a lack of the policy you want demonstrates that we're scientifically illiterate. Instead, recognize that the science can only inform our debate over the values.

millettjon 10y ago
If a large portion of the population does not value or understand science, how can you have a rational debate on values?
- nsxwolf 10y ago
  Let's say that eventually it is the consensus of the scientific community that things like consciousness, pain and free will are just illusions, and therefore, human rights are an outdated concept, and future policy decisions should reflect that consensus. You'd resist those policy proposals, and I think most people would. You'd base that resistance on your values - values, which in this case at least, you did NOT derive from the scientific consensus. My point is there are non-scientific origins for value systems, and they are more real and valid than scientifically derived ones - science can only give you facts about the material universe.

simosx 10y ago

Understanding science requires some scientific mindset. The climate scientists talk about 1 degree Celsius increase in global temperatures and some react with "I am fine if the temperature would increase by a degree Fahrenheit". Instead, what a person should realise is that an increase in global temperature of a mere 1C is shorthand to trillions of trillions of Joules (energy).

r_smart 10y ago

Most of the comments here are focused on climate change denial and smattering of evolution denial. It often gets painted that science denial (and evolution denial) is something that conservatives do, that liberals are the tribe of science. Here's a link to a talk from Jon Haidt that puts a different perspective on that [0]. I don't want to do his eloquence a disservice, but suffice to say, every group has their own flavors of science denial. The discourse just seems to mostly focus on calling out the conservative forms of it while ignoring the liberal forms. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9kJkuuedw0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9kJkuuedw0

jwatte 10y ago

It is said that, in a war of ideology, you cannot bring facts. But, what if facts are your ideology? This is the conundrum we're facing.