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> Personally, as a scientist, I am comforted that there are enough others out there who doubt the entire notion of a scientific establishment that the populatio

by baddox 6y ago

> Personally, as a scientist, I am comforted that there are enough others out there who doubt the entire notion of a scientific establishment that the population should "trust" to make decisions without oversight. I'm not sure what you're actually proposing, but it sounds dangerously close to "pilots have been in control of airplanes for decades, and they've caused so many crashes, so maybe it's time to try people who aren't pilots." > I'd rather be ruled over by elite families than squabbling, territorial, overconfident scientists who can be bought off for nothing and blackmailed easily. Do you really look at history and conclude that, because some scientists are corrupt or dishonest, you'd rather have monarchs control things like safety regulations for medicine, industrial activity, architecture, food, etc.? Again, that sounds very much like the "let's give non-pilots a shot at controlling aircraft."

keenmaster 6y ago
I'm not 100% agreeing with the OP, but I am horrified by the massive number of scientists, medical leaders, and medical professionals who: 1. Downplayed the role of masks as a public measure to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 early on (often out of a duplicitous desire to preserve PPE for the medical community, without considering that homemade cotton masks would not reduce PPE supply for medical workers) 2. Didn't advocate for the use of masks, beginning with cotton masks (this is actually a different point than #1. Spreading confusion and not providing clarity are two different bad things.) 3. Downplayed COVID in general, and publicly wondered whether a ton more people had immunity than we thought. That was with specious evidence and, damningly, it increased confusion and probably reduced compliance with mitigation measures.
- nkiller 6y ago
  That's what makes "trust the science" or "trust the experts" a terrible mantra or budgeon to bash skeptical or uninformed people with. Whose science? What kind of science?
- baddox 6y ago
  I agree with all those criticisms to some extent, but without some alternative I don't find the argument very useful, and I certainly don't find the original commenter's approach useful. It's like listing the many many examples of plane crashes due to pilot error. That's not controversial. I don't think many people claim that individual pilots act without flaw, or that the entire system of pilot training and qualification is without flaw. But surely the proposal should not be to take comfort as more and more people "doubt the entire notion of an airplane piloting establishment that the population should 'trust' to make decisions without oversight."
  - keenmaster 6y ago
    Criticism moderates duplicity and complacency. The mere presence of widespread criticism would help. It would also serve as a foundation for a system to mitigate these problems going forward. You can't solve the problem until you: 1. First identify it as a problem (which I don't think we've done enough but you think the problem is apparent to everyone) 2. Direct the criticism to the right people (not just politicians, but medical leaders and the medical establishment as a whole - believe it or not, they have a halo effect and are not sufficiently criticized. The industry systematically weaponizes our high regard for the medical profession in order to prevent what it sees as adverse reforms) 3. and acknowledge that there is a way to mitigate the problem ex ante, instead of saying "sure it's a problem but it's unsolvable because of all the emergent complexity." Say what you want about Elon Musk, but the man thought "I'm going to shoot multiple giant rockets through the atmosphere and land them back on a moving boat simultaneously" then proceeded to actually do it. He didn't throw his hands up to emergent complexity. SpaceX took complexity by the horns. Synthesizing and amplifying non-duplicitous, high quality advice from medical leaders/orgs is not that complicated! Only they can lead you to believe that it's complicated, and then somehow deny that they did that. If they contradict themselves, it's because "we used the best available facts at the time." Laughable, and completely non-falsifiable. As an aside, perhaps Americans would be less anti-scientific if a majority of them weren't scammed by the medical industry and charged $150-$200 for a tiny consultation with someone who is bribed by pharmaceutical representatives to shill for harmful drugs. Maybe Americans would be less anti-scientific if their government wasn't captured by medical lobbyists for over a century so that there isn't a faint hope for reforms like universal healthcare. The industry doesn't care, because they know that if America wakes up, and politicians aren't captured, total compensation for doctors and surgeons would eventually drop 40% with negligible or no impact on innovation and medical outcomes. To them, something is wrong if a huge chunk of your disposable income isn't siphoned to their wallets every year (part of which you never even see - that is, insurance premiums paid by your employer that you would otherwise receive as income).
- ummonk 6y ago
  Also claiming that China's totalitarian lockdown measures would achieve nothing.
- timr 6y ago
  "Downplayed the role of masks as a public measure to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 early on (often out of a duplicitous desire to preserve PPE for the medical community, without considering that homemade cotton masks would not reduce PPE supply for medical workers)" Or maybe you're being deceived now? Honestly, the evidence for universal masking hasn't changed (recent papers on this have largely been terrible and/or meta-analyses of the same group of papers that were written before the pandemic). There are still a lot of informed, intelligent scientists who have been saying the idea isn't supported by data. The "consensus" on this issue appears to be driven by politicians and media, not by science: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-politics/ https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-... https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/podcasts-webinars/special-ep-masks https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/podcasts-webinars/specia...
  - keenmaster 6y ago
    Thank you for inadvertently proving my point. The evidence for the efficacy of universal, compliant mask-wearing is extremely strong, but there will always be specious studies with contra-claims. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more those studies are amplified, the more confused people are, the less they wear masks, the less their politicians mandate that they wear masks, the more it becomes a political issue, etc...and the less masks do their job, leading to more death and injury. I can't understate the marginal economic injury either. All for what? Seriously, for what? So that people don't put a $5 chunk of cloth on their face to save lives? Good lord. We're talking about a nearly certain enormous gain with very little "cost." There isn't even a real trade-off.
    - timr 6y ago
      "Thank you for inadvertently proving my point. The evidence for the efficacy of universal, compliant mask-wearing is extremely strong," Indeed, thank you for providing a wonderful example of "scientism": a blind belief in the conclusions of "science", even when you're presented with ample scientific evidence that disproves your belief. If your secret evidence is so strong, you should cite it, instead of merely asserting that it exists. I just gave you two incredibly well-sourced articles showing that the opposite is true, and your response is to insult me and claim I'm wrong (without proof). Michael Osterholm (CIDRAP) and the Oxford Center for Evidence-Based medicine are not crackpot organizations, and the cited articles are reviews of all literature, not "specious studies". In all likelihood, these articles have already discussed the evidence that you believe is compelling.
cuspy 6y ago
I'm not proposing anything like that. I said that I'm glad others are becoming more skeptical of the message of relying on trust without oversight. The fact that you read my comment as advocating a total disregard for training and expertise is exactly why we are in this mess. Where is nuance? No, I look at the current situation and conclude that our institutions are failing us. Notice that I didn't say I'd prefer to be ruled over by elite families rather than a consistent, transparent and democratic government that is accountable for its mistakes. I want government that has a generational stake in the outcome of its policies. All I can say in response to you is that without charitable reading of one another's thoughts, we are never going to get anywhere. It will be endless, pointless dispute. Just because something "sounds like" something else in some superficial way, doesn't mean it is.
- baddox 6y ago
  I'm sorry you don't view my interpretation as charitable, but I do think a charitable interpretation of your first comment is that you don't propose ways of fixing problems in the scientific community but rather broadly dismiss the scientific community without proposing a better alternative other than "elite families."
  - white-flame 6y ago
    Complaining about "the ever-growing list of regulatory failures, moral failures and outright abuses pushed in the guise of scientific expertise" does not read to me as dismissing the core scientific community itself. Plus, one could easily distinguish between the terms "establishment"/"hierarchical structures" as entrenched leadership focused on power dynamics rather than the science itself, versus "community" which is involved in the science.
- godelski 6y ago
  > Where is nuance? The problem with language is we have to make certain assumptions. It is easy to read your comment in that way. Just as it could be easy to read > cuspy 15 minutes ago | parent | on: Science and Scientific Expertise Are More Importan... I'm not proposing anything like that. I said that I'm glad others are becoming more skeptical of the message of relying on trust without oversight. The fact that you read my comment as advocating a total disregard for training and expertise is exactly why we are in this mess. Where is nuance? No, I look at the current situation and conclude that our institutions are failing us. Notice that I didn't say I'd prefer to be ruled over by elite families rather than a consistent, transparent and democratic government that is accountable for its mistakes. I want government that has a generational stake in the outcome of its policies. > All I can say in response to you is that without charitable reading of one another's thoughts, we are never going to get anywhere. It will be endless, pointless dispute. Just because something "sounds like" something else in some superficial way, doesn't mean it is. As promoting anti-vaxers. The reason is because these conspiracy groups mimic the same language (i.e. the anti-authority rhetoric). With so much dog whistling happening it is difficult to correctly interpret. Btw, I don't think that's what you're intending to imply and I didn't take it that way, but it is important to understand how it could be taken that way. As a scientist, I care about many of the concerns that you are bringing up, but also be mindful that it is difficult to understand because these preconceived notions. It isn't so much that there is a uncharitable reading, but that it is hard to determine what you are meaning. There's "what you mean," "what you say," and "what is heard" and these can all the different things. This is specifically a problem because the division in our culture currently.
xkcd-sucks 6y ago
"Science" is the iterative loop of observing reality, modeling reality, and correcting the model based on observation. It's how children learn to walk. Science doesn't require formal training in principle; in practice training in critical thinking is good, and training in specific techniques might be necessary to observe + interpret specific phenomena. As an aside - Many practicing scientists don't fully understand all the techniques they use day-to-day, and almost certainly don't understand techniques several steps removed from what they do themselves. To understand everything is simply impossible. Everything else a matter of faith: In the honesty of people reporting results, in the competence of people reporting results, in the similarity between model systems and the "real world", etc. Of course one might apply one's training in techniques to validate the consistency of stuff asserted by other things - people, instrument readings, etc.
scottlocklin 6y ago
I realize HN sperdos have a hard time with this concept sometimes, but MUH SCIENCE isn't how we make decisions as a society, anywhere, ever. Leadership is decision under uncertainty. The best thing most scientists can do for leadership is tell them the best guess and estimates of how big the uncertainties are. Recent events have shown how unbelievably shitty these guesses were, and, frankly, continue to be; and as far as I can tell, none of the important players over the last 6 months mentioned any of the uncertainties in a useful actionable way. Putting scientists and operations research types in charge of anything more complicated than airline routing tables is basically the definition of madness; literally every time it's been tried in human history has ended up a disaster. Adam Curtis and that gasbag Taleb have made a career of documenting this obvious truism.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 6y ago
  > I realize HN sperdos have a hard time with this concept sometimes Hey please don't do that here. Crotchety contrarianism needn't be a bad thing but the HN guidelines say "don't be snarky" for a reason, and there are other guidelines too: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Many of your comments are clearly based on knowledge, which we cut a lot of slack for, but if you would make our lives a little easier I'd appreciate it. This comment would be just fine if it started with the "Leadership is" sentence. "Gasbag" is name-calling but as part of a backhanded compliment, no big deal; we're not sticklers.

by baddox 6y ago

keenmaster 6y ago

I'm not 100% agreeing with the OP, but I am horrified by the massive number of scientists, medical leaders, and medical professionals who: 1. Downplayed the role of masks as a public measure to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 early on (often out of a duplicitous desire to preserve PPE for the medical community, without considering that homemade cotton masks would not reduce PPE supply for medical workers) 2. Didn't advocate for the use of masks, beginning with cotton masks (this is actually a different point than #1. Spreading confusion and not providing clarity are two different bad things.) 3. Downplayed COVID in general, and publicly wondered whether a ton more people had immunity than we thought. That was with specious evidence and, damningly, it increased confusion and probably reduced compliance with mitigation measures.

nkiller 6y ago
That's what makes "trust the science" or "trust the experts" a terrible mantra or budgeon to bash skeptical or uninformed people with. Whose science? What kind of science?
baddox 6y ago
I agree with all those criticisms to some extent, but without some alternative I don't find the argument very useful, and I certainly don't find the original commenter's approach useful. It's like listing the many many examples of plane crashes due to pilot error. That's not controversial. I don't think many people claim that individual pilots act without flaw, or that the entire system of pilot training and qualification is without flaw. But surely the proposal should not be to take comfort as more and more people "doubt the entire notion of an airplane piloting establishment that the population should 'trust' to make decisions without oversight."
- keenmaster 6y ago
  Criticism moderates duplicity and complacency. The mere presence of widespread criticism would help. It would also serve as a foundation for a system to mitigate these problems going forward. You can't solve the problem until you: 1. First identify it as a problem (which I don't think we've done enough but you think the problem is apparent to everyone) 2. Direct the criticism to the right people (not just politicians, but medical leaders and the medical establishment as a whole - believe it or not, they have a halo effect and are not sufficiently criticized. The industry systematically weaponizes our high regard for the medical profession in order to prevent what it sees as adverse reforms) 3. and acknowledge that there is a way to mitigate the problem ex ante, instead of saying "sure it's a problem but it's unsolvable because of all the emergent complexity." Say what you want about Elon Musk, but the man thought "I'm going to shoot multiple giant rockets through the atmosphere and land them back on a moving boat simultaneously" then proceeded to actually do it. He didn't throw his hands up to emergent complexity. SpaceX took complexity by the horns. Synthesizing and amplifying non-duplicitous, high quality advice from medical leaders/orgs is not that complicated! Only they can lead you to believe that it's complicated, and then somehow deny that they did that. If they contradict themselves, it's because "we used the best available facts at the time." Laughable, and completely non-falsifiable. As an aside, perhaps Americans would be less anti-scientific if a majority of them weren't scammed by the medical industry and charged $150-$200 for a tiny consultation with someone who is bribed by pharmaceutical representatives to shill for harmful drugs. Maybe Americans would be less anti-scientific if their government wasn't captured by medical lobbyists for over a century so that there isn't a faint hope for reforms like universal healthcare. The industry doesn't care, because they know that if America wakes up, and politicians aren't captured, total compensation for doctors and surgeons would eventually drop 40% with negligible or no impact on innovation and medical outcomes. To them, something is wrong if a huge chunk of your disposable income isn't siphoned to their wallets every year (part of which you never even see - that is, insurance premiums paid by your employer that you would otherwise receive as income).
ummonk 6y ago
Also claiming that China's totalitarian lockdown measures would achieve nothing.
timr 6y ago
"Downplayed the role of masks as a public measure to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 early on (often out of a duplicitous desire to preserve PPE for the medical community, without considering that homemade cotton masks would not reduce PPE supply for medical workers)" Or maybe you're being deceived now? Honestly, the evidence for universal masking hasn't changed (recent papers on this have largely been terrible and/or meta-analyses of the same group of papers that were written before the pandemic). There are still a lot of informed, intelligent scientists who have been saying the idea isn't supported by data. The "consensus" on this issue appears to be driven by politicians and media, not by science: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-politics/ https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-... https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/podcasts-webinars/special-ep-masks https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/podcasts-webinars/specia...
- keenmaster 6y ago
  Thank you for inadvertently proving my point. The evidence for the efficacy of universal, compliant mask-wearing is extremely strong, but there will always be specious studies with contra-claims. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy: the more those studies are amplified, the more confused people are, the less they wear masks, the less their politicians mandate that they wear masks, the more it becomes a political issue, etc...and the less masks do their job, leading to more death and injury. I can't understate the marginal economic injury either. All for what? Seriously, for what? So that people don't put a $5 chunk of cloth on their face to save lives? Good lord. We're talking about a nearly certain enormous gain with very little "cost." There isn't even a real trade-off.
  - timr 6y ago
    "Thank you for inadvertently proving my point. The evidence for the efficacy of universal, compliant mask-wearing is extremely strong," Indeed, thank you for providing a wonderful example of "scientism": a blind belief in the conclusions of "science", even when you're presented with ample scientific evidence that disproves your belief. If your secret evidence is so strong, you should cite it, instead of merely asserting that it exists. I just gave you two incredibly well-sourced articles showing that the opposite is true, and your response is to insult me and claim I'm wrong (without proof). Michael Osterholm (CIDRAP) and the Oxford Center for Evidence-Based medicine are not crackpot organizations, and the cited articles are reviews of all literature, not "specious studies". In all likelihood, these articles have already discussed the evidence that you believe is compelling.

cuspy 6y ago

I'm not proposing anything like that. I said that I'm glad others are becoming more skeptical of the message of relying on trust without oversight. The fact that you read my comment as advocating a total disregard for training and expertise is exactly why we are in this mess. Where is nuance? No, I look at the current situation and conclude that our institutions are failing us. Notice that I didn't say I'd prefer to be ruled over by elite families rather than a consistent, transparent and democratic government that is accountable for its mistakes. I want government that has a generational stake in the outcome of its policies. All I can say in response to you is that without charitable reading of one another's thoughts, we are never going to get anywhere. It will be endless, pointless dispute. Just because something "sounds like" something else in some superficial way, doesn't mean it is.

baddox 6y ago
I'm sorry you don't view my interpretation as charitable, but I do think a charitable interpretation of your first comment is that you don't propose ways of fixing problems in the scientific community but rather broadly dismiss the scientific community without proposing a better alternative other than "elite families."
- white-flame 6y ago
  Complaining about "the ever-growing list of regulatory failures, moral failures and outright abuses pushed in the guise of scientific expertise" does not read to me as dismissing the core scientific community itself. Plus, one could easily distinguish between the terms "establishment"/"hierarchical structures" as entrenched leadership focused on power dynamics rather than the science itself, versus "community" which is involved in the science.
godelski 6y ago
> Where is nuance? The problem with language is we have to make certain assumptions. It is easy to read your comment in that way. Just as it could be easy to read > cuspy 15 minutes ago | parent | on: Science and Scientific Expertise Are More Importan... I'm not proposing anything like that. I said that I'm glad others are becoming more skeptical of the message of relying on trust without oversight. The fact that you read my comment as advocating a total disregard for training and expertise is exactly why we are in this mess. Where is nuance? No, I look at the current situation and conclude that our institutions are failing us. Notice that I didn't say I'd prefer to be ruled over by elite families rather than a consistent, transparent and democratic government that is accountable for its mistakes. I want government that has a generational stake in the outcome of its policies. > All I can say in response to you is that without charitable reading of one another's thoughts, we are never going to get anywhere. It will be endless, pointless dispute. Just because something "sounds like" something else in some superficial way, doesn't mean it is. As promoting anti-vaxers. The reason is because these conspiracy groups mimic the same language (i.e. the anti-authority rhetoric). With so much dog whistling happening it is difficult to correctly interpret. Btw, I don't think that's what you're intending to imply and I didn't take it that way, but it is important to understand how it could be taken that way. As a scientist, I care about many of the concerns that you are bringing up, but also be mindful that it is difficult to understand because these preconceived notions. It isn't so much that there is a uncharitable reading, but that it is hard to determine what you are meaning. There's "what you mean," "what you say," and "what is heard" and these can all the different things. This is specifically a problem because the division in our culture currently.

xkcd-sucks 6y ago

"Science" is the iterative loop of observing reality, modeling reality, and correcting the model based on observation. It's how children learn to walk. Science doesn't require formal training in principle; in practice training in critical thinking is good, and training in specific techniques might be necessary to observe + interpret specific phenomena. As an aside - Many practicing scientists don't fully understand all the techniques they use day-to-day, and almost certainly don't understand techniques several steps removed from what they do themselves. To understand everything is simply impossible. Everything else a matter of faith: In the honesty of people reporting results, in the competence of people reporting results, in the similarity between model systems and the "real world", etc. Of course one might apply one's training in techniques to validate the consistency of stuff asserted by other things - people, instrument readings, etc.

scottlocklin 6y ago

I realize HN sperdos have a hard time with this concept sometimes, but MUH SCIENCE isn't how we make decisions as a society, anywhere, ever. Leadership is decision under uncertainty. The best thing most scientists can do for leadership is tell them the best guess and estimates of how big the uncertainties are. Recent events have shown how unbelievably shitty these guesses were, and, frankly, continue to be; and as far as I can tell, none of the important players over the last 6 months mentioned any of the uncertainties in a useful actionable way. Putting scientists and operations research types in charge of anything more complicated than airline routing tables is basically the definition of madness; literally every time it's been tried in human history has ended up a disaster. Adam Curtis and that gasbag Taleb have made a career of documenting this obvious truism.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dang 6y ago
> I realize HN sperdos have a hard time with this concept sometimes Hey please don't do that here. Crotchety contrarianism needn't be a bad thing but the HN guidelines say "don't be snarky" for a reason, and there are other guidelines too: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Many of your comments are clearly based on knowledge, which we cut a lot of slack for, but if you would make our lives a little easier I'd appreciate it. This comment would be just fine if it started with the "Leadership is" sentence. "Gasbag" is name-calling but as part of a backhanded compliment, no big deal; we're not sticklers.