4 ms·

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 sc

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.