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Maybe scientific debate shouldn't be conducted in public. Scientists quarelling inside a conference is bad enough, but when they feel they can weaponize their h

Maybe scientific debate shouldn't be conducted in public. Scientists quarelling inside a conference is bad enough, but when they feel they can weaponize their hordes of followers, things turn nuclear and nuance is lost. This might be the first scientific crisis in which chemical substances were being judged by their political affiliation (HCQ), and in which scientists need to declare their politics before engaging, it was pathetic

jokethrowaway 5y ago
Not a crisis, but climate change was similar
- bobbytit 5y ago
  The climate religion destroyed the credibility of science.
  - ant6n 5y ago
    Those with money and power have always sought to undermine scientists that uncover inconvenient truths. Example: Gallileo.
    - bobbytit 5y ago
      Which is why every scientist with the courage to speak out against the climate scam has been cancelled.
dehrmann 5y ago
That just makes science easier to dismiss and feeds conspiracies.
derbOac 5y ago
Exposing scientific debate to the public is a good thing in my opinion. My sense is the pandemic has only exposed and highlighted existing problems in science and how it is used.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  it did not just expose it, it engaged in it. I think the whole experience has proved that it 's a bad thing, nothing of value came from the hordes of idiots who peddle this and that drug/lockdown/masks/vaccinations because their tribe leader told them so. My bet is that, going forward, scientists are going to be very wary of debating crises in public. Science is not done by committee, and definitely not by popular vote
  - derbOac 5y ago
    My personal experience is that science is in fact done by committee in practice, although I agree completely that it shouldn't be. The popularization of science I see as a problem but I guess I see it happening anyway because of dynamics in the scientific community itself. My sense increasingly is that shining a light on things, opening it up to as much transparent scrutiny as possible at this point might be the only way to get out of the problems eventually.
nickthemagicman 5y ago
The nuance is lost by the news media. Not by the people. Make the news media more accountable.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  people dont have the time and energy to follow nuanced arguments, they choose one of the two low energy binary options and stick with it. That's why politics and sports works
  - nickthemagicman 5y ago
    Sports is incredibly complicated with all the statistics. Politics is incredibly complicated as well. People are only given binary options. People think well for themselves when given the information.
    - cblconfederate 5y ago
      yet you rarely see a stadium with spectators ambivalent about which team to support
      - nickthemagicman 5y ago
        Such a strange example. This kind of thinking, that the average person is a moron that shouldn't be allowed to think for themselves, is arrogant and ignorant in itself.
ptero 5y ago
I think the opposite: current mass media approach turns science into a religion -- see the explosion of "I believe in science: (insert desired slogans)" posters. Allowing scepticism, including experiments to challenge widely held beliefs, is fundamental to science. Seeing scientists disagree, debate and use repeatable experiments to settle disagreements could help bring the rational argument back, instead of the current "my science is stronger than your science" style of debate. My 2c.
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  The problem is the Internet did teach people that scientists disagree, but people didn’t use that to develop healthy self-skepticism (really the core of good science is to not fool oneself) but instead to weaponize science to fight in the culture war. The “skeptics” are not skeptical of their own, often inane ideas, but “skeptical” of everything on the other side of the culture war. People LARP as scientists, but they only use that skepticism to avoid expert wisdom. Science is messy, scientists are fallible, and yet it’s better than any other process we’ve got. But people think that fallibility is therefore evidence that the fake certainty of chiropractic alternative medicine or conspiracy theories or woo is better. I’m not sure it has been a net good at all to teach about skepticism but not going all the way to instill self-skepticism.
  - ptero 5y ago
    In my opinion, self-skepticism, the way I understand it, is not a critical attribute: almost any scientist has an emotional attachment to his work and, during investigation, focuses on the good parts. I personally see nothing unhealthy about this. What I do see as a critical failure of the current state is the lack of a scientific method to resolve disagreements: the clearly explained methodology, reproducible results, etc. And in the lack of it, the only way to resolve disagreements is to shut down opponents, which also gives rise to a cottage industry of consensus forming and discrediting minority opinions. Push back to this and return to debating topics on merits would be a great help. My 2c.
- tchalla 5y ago
  > Seeing scientists disagree, debate and use repeatable experiments to settle disagreements could help bring the rational argument back, instead of the current "my science is stronger than your science" style of debate. My 2c. In order to do that, there has to be a framework. The framework currently used is a peer reviewed publications. Currently, the disagreements are being settled not based on experiments in but on opinions in mass media, Twitter threads and Facebook posts. That's not the agreed upon framework. I know that "peer review is fallible" but that's the current agreed upon framework. None of the others are ideal, it's the best we have at the moment unless we come up with another one.
syshum 5y ago
The core of the problem here is not so much politics and science, it is the fact that this science is directly tied to people living or dying. That ramps up the emotional load to 11 and when that happens logic and reason often take a back seat. This is a big flaw in human psychology Emotion is where cults live, and we have science worshipers that attach themselves to an "Expert" like one would attach themselves to a Cult Leader, instead of being rational actors looking at the data the experts are presenting and using their own rationality and logic to understand the situation
marcus_holmes 5y ago
I think that if the actual debate was done in public, it might work. Two scientists actually arguing with each other in public hasn't been a thing, and maybe it should? The instinct has always been to hush up any disagreements and present a united front on all matters that the public are interested in, even if this means that the "front" then has to change later as better evidence emerges. But that instinct doesn't actually help - the change in position is seen as "not knowing what they're doing", or "can't get it right". The question is asked "why should we believe you now when this is different from what you said last time?". Actually having the fight in public would at least show that science is an ongoing discussion and exploration, rather than a fixed set of answers. Of course people will pick sides and favour one argument over another, but they do that anyway. I think the age of allowing scientists to quietly conduct research in academic journals or conferences is over.
- cousin_it 5y ago
  Most of these controversial questions contain more nuance than can be covered in a debate, though. You could say "simplify them", but simplifying a scientific topic is very difficult and time-consuming work at which scientists themselves often fail. And it's comparatively very easy to present an inaccurate simplified version, to make your opponent look wronger than they actually are. My view on this is kind of pessimistic. The mindset of science, based on curiosity, feels to me like a small boat which can only sail when seas are relatively calm. But politics is a storm. The waves are too tall. Maybe the boat just cannot sail in this storm.
  - marcus_holmes 5y ago
    Yeah, but seeing how complex and involved the questions actually are would help with the "I understand this after one YouTube video better than people who've spent their lives studying it" problem. Not simplifying it would make for boring viewing, but it would ram home the point that this isn't as simple as it seems.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  i like the intelligence^2 public debates, but note that the audience doesnt send likes and comments while it s happening

jokethrowaway 5y ago

Not a crisis, but climate change was similar

bobbytit 5y ago
The climate religion destroyed the credibility of science.
- ant6n 5y ago
  Those with money and power have always sought to undermine scientists that uncover inconvenient truths. Example: Gallileo.
  - bobbytit 5y ago
    Which is why every scientist with the courage to speak out against the climate scam has been cancelled.

dehrmann 5y ago

That just makes science easier to dismiss and feeds conspiracies.

derbOac 5y ago

Exposing scientific debate to the public is a good thing in my opinion. My sense is the pandemic has only exposed and highlighted existing problems in science and how it is used.

cblconfederate 5y ago
it did not just expose it, it engaged in it. I think the whole experience has proved that it 's a bad thing, nothing of value came from the hordes of idiots who peddle this and that drug/lockdown/masks/vaccinations because their tribe leader told them so. My bet is that, going forward, scientists are going to be very wary of debating crises in public. Science is not done by committee, and definitely not by popular vote
- derbOac 5y ago
  My personal experience is that science is in fact done by committee in practice, although I agree completely that it shouldn't be. The popularization of science I see as a problem but I guess I see it happening anyway because of dynamics in the scientific community itself. My sense increasingly is that shining a light on things, opening it up to as much transparent scrutiny as possible at this point might be the only way to get out of the problems eventually.

nickthemagicman 5y ago

The nuance is lost by the news media. Not by the people. Make the news media more accountable.

cblconfederate 5y ago
people dont have the time and energy to follow nuanced arguments, they choose one of the two low energy binary options and stick with it. That's why politics and sports works
- nickthemagicman 5y ago
  Sports is incredibly complicated with all the statistics. Politics is incredibly complicated as well. People are only given binary options. People think well for themselves when given the information.
  - cblconfederate 5y ago
    yet you rarely see a stadium with spectators ambivalent about which team to support
    - nickthemagicman 5y ago
      Such a strange example. This kind of thinking, that the average person is a moron that shouldn't be allowed to think for themselves, is arrogant and ignorant in itself.

ptero 5y ago

I think the opposite: current mass media approach turns science into a religion -- see the explosion of "I believe in science: (insert desired slogans)" posters. Allowing scepticism, including experiments to challenge widely held beliefs, is fundamental to science. Seeing scientists disagree, debate and use repeatable experiments to settle disagreements could help bring the rational argument back, instead of the current "my science is stronger than your science" style of debate. My 2c.

Robotbeat 5y ago
The problem is the Internet did teach people that scientists disagree, but people didn’t use that to develop healthy self-skepticism (really the core of good science is to not fool oneself) but instead to weaponize science to fight in the culture war. The “skeptics” are not skeptical of their own, often inane ideas, but “skeptical” of everything on the other side of the culture war. People LARP as scientists, but they only use that skepticism to avoid expert wisdom. Science is messy, scientists are fallible, and yet it’s better than any other process we’ve got. But people think that fallibility is therefore evidence that the fake certainty of chiropractic alternative medicine or conspiracy theories or woo is better. I’m not sure it has been a net good at all to teach about skepticism but not going all the way to instill self-skepticism.
- ptero 5y ago
  In my opinion, self-skepticism, the way I understand it, is not a critical attribute: almost any scientist has an emotional attachment to his work and, during investigation, focuses on the good parts. I personally see nothing unhealthy about this. What I do see as a critical failure of the current state is the lack of a scientific method to resolve disagreements: the clearly explained methodology, reproducible results, etc. And in the lack of it, the only way to resolve disagreements is to shut down opponents, which also gives rise to a cottage industry of consensus forming and discrediting minority opinions. Push back to this and return to debating topics on merits would be a great help. My 2c.
tchalla 5y ago
> Seeing scientists disagree, debate and use repeatable experiments to settle disagreements could help bring the rational argument back, instead of the current "my science is stronger than your science" style of debate. My 2c. In order to do that, there has to be a framework. The framework currently used is a peer reviewed publications. Currently, the disagreements are being settled not based on experiments in but on opinions in mass media, Twitter threads and Facebook posts. That's not the agreed upon framework. I know that "peer review is fallible" but that's the current agreed upon framework. None of the others are ideal, it's the best we have at the moment unless we come up with another one.

syshum 5y ago

The core of the problem here is not so much politics and science, it is the fact that this science is directly tied to people living or dying. That ramps up the emotional load to 11 and when that happens logic and reason often take a back seat. This is a big flaw in human psychology Emotion is where cults live, and we have science worshipers that attach themselves to an "Expert" like one would attach themselves to a Cult Leader, instead of being rational actors looking at the data the experts are presenting and using their own rationality and logic to understand the situation

marcus_holmes 5y ago

I think that if the actual debate was done in public, it might work. Two scientists actually arguing with each other in public hasn't been a thing, and maybe it should? The instinct has always been to hush up any disagreements and present a united front on all matters that the public are interested in, even if this means that the "front" then has to change later as better evidence emerges. But that instinct doesn't actually help - the change in position is seen as "not knowing what they're doing", or "can't get it right". The question is asked "why should we believe you now when this is different from what you said last time?". Actually having the fight in public would at least show that science is an ongoing discussion and exploration, rather than a fixed set of answers. Of course people will pick sides and favour one argument over another, but they do that anyway. I think the age of allowing scientists to quietly conduct research in academic journals or conferences is over.

cousin_it 5y ago
Most of these controversial questions contain more nuance than can be covered in a debate, though. You could say "simplify them", but simplifying a scientific topic is very difficult and time-consuming work at which scientists themselves often fail. And it's comparatively very easy to present an inaccurate simplified version, to make your opponent look wronger than they actually are. My view on this is kind of pessimistic. The mindset of science, based on curiosity, feels to me like a small boat which can only sail when seas are relatively calm. But politics is a storm. The waves are too tall. Maybe the boat just cannot sail in this storm.
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  Yeah, but seeing how complex and involved the questions actually are would help with the "I understand this after one YouTube video better than people who've spent their lives studying it" problem. Not simplifying it would make for boring viewing, but it would ram home the point that this isn't as simple as it seems.
cblconfederate 5y ago
i like the intelligence^2 public debates, but note that the audience doesnt send likes and comments while it s happening