13 ms·

This is a little off topic so apologies, but I was watching a documentary on nasa's project mercury last night, and one thing that struck me was how pro science

• mistermann 6y ago
  Imagine if the media used it's impressive persuasion powers to unite the public on issues rather than divide them, what kind of a country and world could we live in? Based on my reading of history, it seems unlikely that this day will ever come through voluntary means, so I wonder if it could be brought about organically via incremental improvements. I wonder what percentage of people can agree on the general notion of whether the aggregate actions of the media divides people, for now completely leaving aside whether this is intentional or not. It would be fun and informative if HN had polls on questions like this, and perhaps could even lead somewhere. > It makes me think the solution to today's anti science bias isn't just "educate more". I agree. It's weird how outside of technology and science, we insist on coming up with solutions before even trying to analyze what the problem is, while simultaneously complaining about people being anti-science.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• henvic 6y ago
  Thinking about how wasteful was the early exploration of outer space gets me thinking if it didn't backfire. There could've been a moment in society where people where supportive about it, when the costs weren't clear enough. However, once the taxpayers realized these were not only huge endeavours, but had huge costs just for the rush of being the first at all costs + many catastrophic system accidents... clearly society put these things on hold. Now, society is getting back to explore science more and more, but with a better, lasting attitude. See, for example, Space X. Likely, they'll send someone to Mars without deaths or even huge accidents that could only be justified by a lack of financial responsibility in NASA's early days.
  • oivey 6y ago
    I don’t know that taxpayers “thought” about the cost of the space program and decided to give up on it. It could be true, but that’s not how I’ve seen politics work. I think it more had to do with the fact that we beat the USSR and the USSR stopped competing. There weren’t any really major milestones to be had after the Moon, either. Sputnik proved to Americans that the Soviets could fire a missile from Russia and hit the US, and we didn’t have a similar capability. Nothing has been quite that scary since. I think it’s premature to claim SpaceX will make it to Mars without deaths. They’ve only done two manned space flights to LEO at this point. While it does appear to be easier, cheaper, and safer to send people to space, sending people to Mars has never done before. It is going to be extremely dangerous.
    • henvic 6y ago
      You're right. Politics doesn't work this way, and taxpayers have no say on this matter (lest civil unrest, but it didn't went this far). To be honest, I only ended up saying taxpayer because I know how people here are and I was unconsciously avoiding to get down voted for my libertarian-minded opinion.
  • JohnJamesRambo 6y ago
    Why do you think SpaceX won’t have deaths or accidents? SpaceX has had plenty of accidents and going to Mars is so much more dangerous than any space exploration ever attempted.
    • thrav 6y ago
      SpaceX seems to have an ability to test without human risk that far exceeds past space missions. (Thanks to reusable rockets and autonomous / remote systems)
      • henvic 6y ago
        Exactly. I'd argue also that NASA was specially bad regarding safety in its infancy, probably because it was very militaristic and they don't need to care about profit, given its nature – so dozens of accidents might happen and they might still be in business.
• Clubber 6y ago
  It's because we had a common enemy, the USSR. The USSR also launched Sputnik, which alarmed the country. Of course this was the backdrop of the Cold War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_crisis The common enemy went from Anarchism (WWI) to Communism (WWII) to Terrorism (WoT), but now it's each other; the Left's common enemy is the Right, and vice versa. I'll let the reader surmise where that will lead.
  • johnr2 6y ago
    > the Left's common enemy is the Right, and vice versa The common enemy of both is the moderate in the middle who prefers rational discussion to confrontation.
    • randomsearch 6y ago
      This has very much become the case, and what a wide centre it has become - I’d have said I was left wing until the poles pushed so far apart I fell into the central void.
    • watwut 6y ago
      Moderate center prefers status quo and dislikes confrontation. But, it does not actually prefer rational discussion, rational discussion only sometimes favors statis quo. Which is why center is loosing alot. Except in presidential elections, IMO both Biden and Obama are center by any reasonable definition. Even Clintons were center, but she lost, so.
    • crocodiletears 6y ago
      I don't think moderates favor rational discussion so much as they disdain conflict. In my experience, a moderate is a conservative in all things that effect them, and a liberal for anything else. Most moderates I know revile anything that might effect change, until it effects change. And once the change is implemented, they bristle at anything that might change that. No political block gets to claim the province of rationality in a world where political disputes are as much about values as they are about coherent policies.
• leftyted 6y ago
  I think you're partly right but I also think there's something a bit deeper at work here. These days science is viewed as a means to various ends. These ends are all wonderful...eliminate poverty, curtail climate change, cheaper energy, etc. But what's missing is the idea of doing something for the sake of doing it. It's not totally clear what landing on the moon or maintaining a space station really accomplished in terms of material goals. They're glorious accomplishments because of their difficulty. I think that attitude is what's missing. Listening to JFK's "we will go to the moon" speech is almost unbelievable today. Politicians of either party absolutely cannot talk like that today.
  • harikb 6y ago
    Energy independence (from Middle East) was once unthinkable, but we did it, and also included a speech. Sure, not the same level. Climate change is also a similarly difficult problem, but neither of this gives a Hollywood movie style ending in a capsule format the “we are the greatest” crowd really wants - not just America though . Humility, empathy, and non-military-gained peace doesn’t give a movie style ending. This is also why the mass public doesn’t give credit to leaders for solving issues though diplomatic means
    • kortilla 6y ago
      Energy independence is a huge obvious prize in itself. It was very easy to get people to agree that it would be something good to have. The point about JFK’s moon speech is that it was justifying an endeavor that was a hard challenge without any particularly useful outcome. Nobody thought it was going to solve world hunger or prevent an energy crisis. It would be like Trump giving a speech to justify sending astronauts on a trip around Venus. It’s super difficult and mostly useless scientifically.
    • BlueTemplar 6y ago
      Shale oil isn't going to last long, and then what? (And probably shouldn't have been extracted in the first place considering the low energy return and climate change...)
  • 6y ago
• Spooky23 6y ago
  The difference was that it was a time of prosperity. “Progress” = wealth. A lot of that prosperity was false as well — unsustainable development, a requirement for growth that ultimately kills many businesses, etc. Now the average Joe is pretty fucked, so blaming someone else is a successful strategy.
  • throwmylifawy 6y ago
    Yes! The promise of prosperity sounds like a long con these days. Science was the gateway for prosperity and hope and now it seems only to deliver bad news. Here is what the tech and science crowd is projecting these days: You are no longer the center of the universe, you are infinitesimal and unimportant. Everything you do is destroying life in someway. There is no meaning; everything you believe was wrong and misguided. The world is capricious and your personal security can change at any moment no matter how hard you work. Adapt or die. Most of humanity is too dumb to understand how great this is! Who wants to hear that? The average Joe has lost all faith, so in order to cope they drop all pretense of rational behavior and go with what feels good at the moment.
    • lotsofpulp 6y ago
      > Who wants to hear that? Science is telling people that everyone driving 20k miles per year in large individual vehicles and flying to a tropical island twice a year for vacation will eventually result in altering the parameters of nature so that it’s no longer possible to do that. People don’t want to hear that, but they need to hear that. Covering their ears and going lalalala isn’t going to exempt their kids from the future. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem most people are adult enough to face the music.
      • crocodiletears 6y ago
        Who can afford to fly anywhere more than once every few years (assuming no surprise expenses), or not to drive 20k miles a year across urban sprawl to their jobs? The first restriction is so alien to much of the population as to be meaningless, the second is a threat to their livelihoods. An accompanying promise of public transit rings hollow for many Americans, who think of their local governments as only marginally competent enough to fill potholes in the road sometimes. Naturally people will bristle at the abstract of many climate restrictions. Not because the fun will stop, but because they aren't having any fun in the first place, and they just don't want things to get less fun than that.
• grecy 6y ago
  Imagine if the current situation was framed the same way. "American can BEAT Russia on Coronavirus numbers" - we just have to all wear a mask. Soon we'll have no cases and life (and economy) will get back to normal and we'll BEAT everyone in the WORLD!!! " Instead America is virtually dead last.
  • pm90 6y ago
    Not sure why you’re being downvoted. Historically, a competitive framing has made it much easier for States to motivate their populace. A friendly competition over who does better in fighting a common enemy would absolutely have made everyone be more careful and wear masks more often (it would be seen as a patriotic duty). Instead we have a POTUS constantly downplaying the threat, accusing China of being responsible for deliberately infecting the rest of the world with this (supposedly nonexistent?!) threat and masking is seen as treading “freedoms”.
• mrtksn 6y ago
  That's probably because of Sputnik. I'm not old enough to remember but from what I've read, when the Soviets launched Sputnik, the American public was shocked having SSSR machine passing over them and they can't do anything about it and don't have anything to match the soviets. They believed that the USA was the frontrunner in technology but the Sputnik demonstrated that this may not be the case. So from my understanding, the technology become a populist agenda as a result of that. It's also interesting to watch old American movies like Rocky or Top Gun where the Soviets are portrayed as the more technologically advanced nation but Americans prevail thanks to their spirit and courage. Maybe after the collapse of the Soviet Union, science and technology got a pushback in popular culture? When you come to the end of the 90's and the beginning of the 2000's you have movies like Fight Club and Matrix denounce technology as the destroyer of the society or humanity. You even have Lord of the Rings trilogy that tells an epic story about an industrialist who dares to start a mass production and tech research, meritocracy instead of race but "the good guys" are those who are deeply involved keeping the world as-is for thousands of years and value separation between races, masters and servants. And what we have now? Red pills, blue pills, black pills from the Matrix, quest to restore the manliness from Fight Club, race separation, leader worship and and looking down to technology and multiculturalism from Lord of the Rings. Half Joke, half serious of course :)
  • matkoniecz 6y ago
    Wait, Sauron or Suman supported meritocracy? Or opposed racism? How, why, what, wat? Maybe in the movie, but as far as I know LOTR movies did no changes related to that.
    • laretluval 6y ago
      Seems to be a reference to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ringbearer
      • matkoniecz 6y ago
        If it is a reference to The Last Ringbearer then it is quite weird as depicted world in that book takes some names from LOTR. With nothing else matching between this books. And in LOTR Sauron was neither promoting meritocracy nor against racism. While in TLR more industrialised side was not depicted negatively. So even if it is referring to TLR then it still makes no sense.
• daveFNbuck 6y ago
  The "educate more" solution is known as the deficit model and there's a large body of research showing that it's not true for science communication. You can read a bit about it at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_deficit_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_deficit_model
• lumberjack 6y ago
  The "anti-science" crowds are all about trust. They aren't anti-science per se. Education as it is currently done won't really help much because it is not focused on what are actually persuasive arguments to these people. The fundamental problem is that "science" in practice means trusting in scientific institutions. To tackle anti-science you need to make the argument for why trust in universities and other scientific institutions is justified. I don't understand how such big heads cannot understand such a simply basic human situation, and instead they produce videos talking about the scientific method, as if Mr. average Joe is going to go download some papers and datasets and spend thousands of hours reproducing the results. It's a bit like free software. Why use it? Do you personally go through every source code of every application you use or do you just trust in the community? Now what if I spread a conspiracy theory that actually some big maintainer is injecting malware and other free software developers are in cahoots with him? You might think such a conspiracy theory is ridiculous but others might find it compelling.
  • germinalphrase 6y ago
    The problem, of course, is that it is much easier to destroy trust than create it.
  • pm90 6y ago
    > I don't understand how such big heads cannot understand such a simply basic human situation, and instead they produce videos talking about the scientific method, as if Mr. average Joe is going to go download some papers and datasets and spend thousands of hours reproducing the results. What specifically are you referencing here? I completely agree with you that we need a lot more science explainers. There are already a lot of good content on eg YT, but no doubt it’s not something that gets surfaced to most viewers. In school, nobody really taught me what the scientific method was. I was never told that Science isn’t just “gospel truths” like scriptures but instead (essentially) this growing body of peer reviewed papers that are used to form a shared understanding of the principles by which we believe the world works. Meanwhile YT is swarmed with conspiracy theories almost daily, because it’s so fucking easy to make a stupid shocking conspiracy video. The depressing thing is that people really do genuinely believe this nonsense, and it is the source of much despair in their lives. Not being a religious person, I classify religious beliefs on the same level as conspiracy theories. Except that, most of the older ones have been refined by religious scholars over centuries to at least be interpreted in socially advantageous ways.
• disown 6y ago
  > It makes me think the solution to today's anti science bias isn't just "educate more". "Anti-science" is just a propaganda term extremists accuse each other of being. It's a very easy tell. Nobody is against science. What people fight about is politics. "Man can be a woman", "climate science", "masks vs no masks", "lockdowns", etc are not scientific issues, it's political issues. "Educate more" wouldn't help because it's not a matter of science, but politics. And there are plenty of educated people on both sides. Also, when a political group tries to use science to push their agenda, people should be wary. Pretty much all the genocides and horrors of the past 200 years have been a result of politicized science. People forget that modern white supremacy, nazism, communism, etc are all a result of politicized science. People who use terms like anti-science today are the same people who accused supporters of racial equality as being anti-science 100 years ago. And it's been my experience that people who accuse other people of being "anti-science" have no background in science or understand the history of science. They are just political extremists who undeservedly wrap themselves around the good name of science as if it were a flag to attack their political opponents.
  • smolder 6y ago
    Climate science is not political, climate policy is. You aren't wrong that some people misunderstand what it is to support science, and conflate that with certain policy preferences. I also think the blame for that can be placed squarely with those who have chosen to attack institutions of scientific truth because they are opposed to policy that might result from what is clearly true. Blame the politicization of "science" on the pro oil propagandists that put in the effort to make it that way. The naive "pro-science" stance is a reaction.
    • disown 6y ago
      > Climate science is not political, climate policy is. The problem is climate policy determines climate science. > I also think the blame for that can be placed squarely with those who have chosen to attack institutions of scientific truth "Institutions of scientific truth". Sounds rather orwellian, but yours is a form of appeal to authority. Institutions don't determine "scientific truth", experiments do. > because they are opposed to policy that might result from what is clearly true. Spoken like a true believer. > Blame the politicization of "science" on the pro oil propagandists that put in the effort to make it that way Enough blame to go around. And you aren't any better than the oil propagandists. > The naive "pro-science" stance is a reaction. Yes. Oil companies funded the oil propagandists. Who is funding the "green" propagandists. I wonder?
• markus_zhang 6y ago
  War indeed creates a lot of requirements on science and tech.
• crocodiletears 6y ago
  In those days, science was chiefly thought of as a framework to further our understanding of the natural world, and how we could utilize that knowledge for the betterment of our collective ends. Societal policy and morality were issues for politicians and priests, scientists (though they did occasionally chime in). The USSR's technological progress served as a constant reminder that science was an epistemological tool, and not a teleological one. The public was also directly downstream from the benefits of scientific advancement. Microwave ovens, color televisions, better engine, cheap refrigeration, the increasing ubiquity of plastics, and the jobs they all brought with them were conspiring to raise the American standard of living by leaps and bounds over a short period of time, and automating away many of life's greatest inconveniences. Almost every technological leap raised the tide of human experience, and every boat was lifted along with it. Science was also the bulwark between the country, and the USSR. The advent of the nuclear bomb showed us how awesomely destructive and game changing a technological advance could be in the field of war. By the mid fifties, it was generally understood that if the US didn't have a riposte for every possible Soviet weapon, then the US could not continue to exist. Scientific advancement was material, it was flashy, you could touch it. Rocket engines propelled humans beyond heights previously imagined, and jets shrank the world exponentially. Helicopters flew unlike anything we'd ever seen before, and even primitive computers performed mathematical calculations on their own with unprecedented speed and efficiency. Today, science has advanced much more subtly, especially since the maturation of the microprocessor in the mid 2010s. Many of our physical advancements are refinements to technologies established in the 50s and 60s, rather than fantastical new applications of hitherto unknown physical phenomena. Advances in material sciences and automation offer large increases in performance for industrial applications, but at the potential cost of employment, in exchange for often only marginal increases at the high-end of consumer products. The lion's share of consumer-facing advancements in automation in particular, has been developed to manipulate, cajole, and to track our every choice. Our refrigerators remind us we need milk, our coffee makers try to protect us from unlicensed nonproprietary coffee blends. We can't share what we buy, because new technology ensures that we can only license. Every minor convenience we receive is another bar in a gilded cage being constructed around us. More transformative advances are so abstract as to be inapplicable to the average person's life, too expensive to leveraged, or squirreled behind the closed doors of military and industry. Scientifically sound advice for society is no longer liberating. Stay indoors, don't work. Get rid of your cars, they're bad for the earth. The words of scientists anymore often advise caution and restriction. Science is now less often treated as a tool, and more a cudgel to justify social and economic policies. Politicians will launder their beliefs policies through lopsided studies to give their ideologies an air of impenetrable objectivity A large handful of the population has sought to fill the existential/moral/purposeful void in their lives by looking to our scientists and technologists as if it were a new church. This is perhaps inspired by the legends of 20th century scientists, and profundities of great scientific communicators such as Carl Sagan, Michio Kaku, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson. These people tend to be incapable of differentiating between a scientifically sound policy regime meant to fulfill goals that align with their value system, and 'the will of science'. Others, objecting to these policy regimes, not knowing better, assume these people are right about the 'will of science', and throw the baby out with the bathwater, rejecting scientific knowledge outright, ignoring that nothing about science as an epistemological framework is reasonably morally prescriptive. 'Science says' has become shorthand for _"A group of academics or liberals want this, they think they know how they can get there, no it's not up for debate'_. So most people who don't believe in a neoliberal future ignore, reject, and sneer at the use of the term. Through all these things, the brand of 'science' has been diluted, and tarnished to the point where much of the population no longer takes it seriously. Especially since 'science based' policies are occasionally accompanied by white lies meant to coerce people into behaving a certain way.
• grawprog 6y ago
  Science is highly politicized still. It's part of why I stopped doing that kind of work. Everything through the grant applications, working with different industries and government groups, presenting our results. Everything ended up being political. Our data ended up being locked behind a paid government database against the approved plan in our grant application. This came shortly, coincidentally after we ended up discovering an endangered species in an area they hadn't been found before near an active mine site. I also seen first hand as a wetland restoration project was carried out for absolutely no reason after water samples in a lake pointed to the town golf course being the problem. Sampling was immediately stopped, there was no more talk of the golf course and a project was approved to mitigate lake pollution by building a wetland on the opposite side of the lake away from the golf course. Tens of thousands of dollars were wasted on this project. The lake's just as polluted as ever. But the town council just couldn't not have the greenest, green on their golf course. The whole actual issue was fertilizer run off from the course and it was totally ignored.
• bleepblorp 6y ago
  I suspect the popular tide against science, especially among the 'America first' crowd, turned once science came up with results that threatened to make certain very large piles of money slightly smaller. With society and the economy completely dependent on science to function, doing science now has a certain speaking truth to power aspect, in that scientific results can threaten wealthy established interests. This does not make science entirely popular among the kind of people who write the mental firmware for the 'America first' crowd. Several large piles of money have waged deliberate campaigns against public faith in the results of the scientific process [0], and this will certainly have had an impact on public faith in science. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil_climate_change_cont... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/big-tobacco-kept-cancer-risk-in-cigarettes-secret-study/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/big-tobacco-kept-cancer-risk-in...
• the__alchemist 6y ago
  This spirit is captured elegantly by Sagan in the Pale Blue Dot chapter The Gift of Apollo. An excert: < "“Whatever the reason we first mustered the _Apollo_ program, however mired it was in Cold War nationalism and the instruments of death, the inescapable recognition of the unity and fragility of the Earth is its clear and luminous dividend, the unexpected final gift of _Apollo_. What began in deadly competition has helped us to see that global cooperation is the essential precondition for our survival. Travel is broadening. It's time to hit the road again.” Manuscript: https://www.loc.gov/item/cosmos000039 https://www.loc.gov/item/cosmos000039