4 ms·

interesting article with a lot of good tidbits. i found it particularly interesting that the authors mention how a substantial subset of people merely reiterate

interesting article with a lot of good tidbits. i found it particularly interesting that the authors mention how a substantial subset of people merely reiterate their position when prompted to explain their rationale for certain beliefs. the details regarding how for many people "reasoning" is about referencing the person's perception of their own identity is also very valuable. i wouldn't call this reasoning whatsoever, however. it's tribalism -- the opposite of reasoning. this suggests that many people simply don't think about controversial issues, and instead take cues from authorities of their identity subtype. i assume there is literature which supports this idea. there was one thing which i took issue with, however. >sceptical attitudes toward the scientific consensus on genetically modified foods (as safe) tended to involve fallacious reasoning of a conspiratorial bent (such as “I am hesitant to believe there are NO concerns because the multinational agricultural corporations such as Monsanto have profits as the basis of their existence so any information they put out is suspect”) this is a poor example given the recent debunking of monsanto's "glyphosate is safe" fabrications. it isn't conspiratorial to suggest that X may not be Y because the proponent of X benefits from and encourages people thinking Y. that's basic critical thinking which recognizes that scientific results can be skewed or falsified to support a narrative. given the rest of the article, i'm confident that the author's use of this example wasn't malicious... but there are many better examples.

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
The article implies a scientific fallacy, which is that scientific knowledge is binary - i.e. either science can say with certainty that something is true, or it can say with equal certainty that something is false. This is not how science works. There are decreasing circles of confidence out from the relative certainty of a core curriculum - approximately an undergrad degree in a hard science - to various research topics. At the edges are pure research which is really just educated guessing. Far from being an invincible march towards knowledge, science actually progresses by throwing grad students at problems more or less at random. Some of them get lucky and find some key insights that match reality. Most don't. Unfortunately there's plenty of evidence from history of scientific reassurances being presented as certainties which were subsequently shown to be wrong - sometimes dangerously so. Add the toxic influence of corporate interest and the unarguable reality that fact that some "evidence" is bought and paid for, and it becomes very hard to accept research as the proof science would like it to be. So it's actually rational to be skeptical of extraordinary claims. E.g. GMOs. The extraordinary claim is that GMOs will end hunger. Obviously only a total monster would oppose that. In reality research into other farming techniques also increases yields, and in any case hunger is actually caused by bad politics, not lack of faith in science. Articles like these conflate the difference between science-as-pure-research for the sake of knowledge, and science-as-policy-justification. The standards for science-as-policy should be much higher than science-as-research, because the consequences of warping truth for profit or power can be so much more damaging.

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago

The article implies a scientific fallacy, which is that scientific knowledge is binary - i.e. either science can say with certainty that something is true, or it can say with equal certainty that something is false. This is not how science works. There are decreasing circles of confidence out from the relative certainty of a core curriculum - approximately an undergrad degree in a hard science - to various research topics. At the edges are pure research which is really just educated guessing. Far from being an invincible march towards knowledge, science actually progresses by throwing grad students at problems more or less at random. Some of them get lucky and find some key insights that match reality. Most don't. Unfortunately there's plenty of evidence from history of scientific reassurances being presented as certainties which were subsequently shown to be wrong - sometimes dangerously so. Add the toxic influence of corporate interest and the unarguable reality that fact that some "evidence" is bought and paid for, and it becomes very hard to accept research as the proof science would like it to be. So it's actually rational to be skeptical of extraordinary claims. E.g. GMOs. The extraordinary claim is that GMOs will end hunger. Obviously only a total monster would oppose that. In reality research into other farming techniques also increases yields, and in any case hunger is actually caused by bad politics, not lack of faith in science. Articles like these conflate the difference between science-as-pure-research for the sake of knowledge, and science-as-policy-justification. The standards for science-as-policy should be much higher than science-as-research, because the consequences of warping truth for profit or power can be so much more damaging.