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> I'd be totally for splitting society into those who respect science and experts, and those who don't. I have no desire to live in your world. What of those o
by seneca 6y ago
> I'd be totally for splitting society into those who respect science and experts, and those who don't. I have no desire to live in your world.
What of those of us who respect science, but have less respect for experts? I strongly believe in science, and believe it to be humanity's "candle in the dark". I have little respect for individual experts who insist that their advice must be followed by all those they deem to be lesser than them, whether science is their justification or not.
Science as a process is the best tool we have. Scientists are human beings, and are just as flawed as everyone else. The contexts they operate in have also shown themselves to be highly susceptible influence by political trends. There was no end to the "science" that would show you the inferiority of minority races 100 years ago. You are not doing science a favor by steeping it in dogma and being blindly deferential, you're turning it into a religion.
- tensor 6y agoIf you can demonstrate your position via the scientific process then great I'm all in. If you can't then I'm going to side with those to try, even if their technique is less than perfect. Today our scientific experts are some of the very few who even try to follow the scientific method. I acknowledge that there are a small few outside of the profession who also try to apply science, but the number is so small that it's almost not worth mentioning. The reality is that few even have the means to actually perform experiments. Certainly outside of computer science, that is true. It's unfortunate that the resources we allocate as a society towards scientific pursuit is such a tiny fraction of the resources we spend as a society. But I suppose that is more a reflection on the value of science to the general population than it is to anything else.