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In your role as a scientist, shouldn't providing evidence of truth (or falsehood) be your main concern? Statements about importance are value judgements that n

In your role as a scientist, shouldn't providing evidence of truth (or falsehood) be your main concern? Statements about importance are value judgements that no doubt you have made, but are not really science and are basically political. An easy example, "covid restrictions curb covid" may be true and you can provide experimental evidence. "We need to impose restrictions" makes a judgement about the overall situation under the restrictions being preferable to the one without them. This is not a scientific call, this is a societal judgement. People too often pretend that an action immediately follows from some identified causal relationship. Smoking kills you does not immediately imply you should quit smoking, without the intermediate step of "you value your later life and health more than the ongoing benefits you get from smoking" (disclaimer, nonsmoker)

hprotagonist 5y ago
>In your role as a scientist, shouldn't providing evidence of truth (or falsehood) be your main concern? Strictly speaking no, but that's more of a long digression on epistemology than what I think you mean. (but think of indiana jones here: "archaeology is concerned with _fact_, not _truth_ ...") My role as a scientist is to work diligently to understand, as best as we are able, the natural world. Yet, "I will always be conscious that my skill carries with it the obligation to serve humanity by making the best use of the Earth's precious wealth."
- Domenic_S 5y ago
  The point, I think, is that laypeople and scientists alike fall further and further into the fallacy of appeal to authority: 'a scientist said it's true, therefore it is true!' (for simplicity, true == a fact correctly expressed). That thing may be true, but the rising disdain for not accepting a conclusion when the evidence isn't presented alongside is worrisome. The difference between science and religion is that science draws conclusions from reproducible research. Yet - especially now - many people take the naked word of 'a scientist' the same way a religious fanatic takes the word of their spiritual leader. This definition gave me a lot of clarity: an expert is someone who has, can get, can make, or can cause to be made - and presents - evidence that supports their conclusions.
Out_of_Characte 5y ago
Statements of importance are indeed value judgements, That's why you have to argue that its universally good ( a virtue ) in order to get around the political stifle. This does happen quite alot but you don't always hear about it. The US happened to approve a 1 billion dollar funding request for Israel's Iron Dome. The vote was 420 to 9.
- refenestrator 5y ago
  But that's not a publicly salient culture issue in the US. It's a simple matter of do you want aipac backing you or your opponent in the next race. Easy calculation, no higher principles necessary.
lmkg 5y ago
The science community as a whole needs to do the work of all three. The work of an individual scientist may be able to focus on just the one, and their lives are easier if they work in a context that gives them that specificity of responsibility. But eventually, someone needs to do the work to convince people "science is trustworthy." And for a variety of reasons (both objective and social), scientists should be on the front lines of that work. The question of "this is important" is tricky because it must involve a two-way discussion with the audience. But there are cases where a scientist must be making that case, e.g. in order to procure funding.
- mdavis6890 5y ago
  > The science community as a whole needs to do the work of all three. This is exactly the source of the trouble. Hearing scientists project their value system onto everybody else destroys their credibility. If people felt that scientists were sticking to the facts and avoiding ideology and values, science would be better received all around. Whether or not the Earth is getting warmer, and the cause of that warming, are scientific questions. Also science is a discussion of possible remediations and their costs. Which remediation to choose, if any, is a question of values and outside the scope of science. Also important for science is being clear about levels of uncertainty and ranges of possible outcomes. Recent global temperatures have little uncertainty. Distant-past temperatures have a much higher level of uncertainty, and predictions about ranges of possible distant-future temperatures have yet more uncertainty. I never hear much about this from scientists or the media that cover them though.
  - majormajor 5y ago
    > Whether or not the Earth is getting warmer, and the cause of that warming, are scientific questions. Also science is a discussion of possible remediations and their costs. Which remediation to choose, if any, is a question of values and outside the scope of science. So how do you propose scientists "stick to" the discussion of remediations of "we can remediate X by doing Y at expense Z" without it being portrayed maliciously as pesky interfering scientists saying "we should do Y"? The problem of lack of trust is hardly the sole responsibility of scientists here. Do you think discussing uncertainty more is going to raise trust or just be more fodder for the people with non-scientific reasons to oppose action? I propose scientists "only stick to the science" if and only if everyone else in the world sticks to their wheelhouse as well. Lotta citizens, politicians, and pundits out there without much training in making good ethical decisions either! As long as the output of a scientist will be interpreted through other people's political lenses its fair game for them to frame it politically too.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
burnished 5y ago
Is a scientist not also a citizen?

hprotagonist 5y ago

>In your role as a scientist, shouldn't providing evidence of truth (or falsehood) be your main concern? Strictly speaking no, but that's more of a long digression on epistemology than what I think you mean. (but think of indiana jones here: "archaeology is concerned with _fact_, not _truth_ ...") My role as a scientist is to work diligently to understand, as best as we are able, the natural world. Yet, "I will always be conscious that my skill carries with it the obligation to serve humanity by making the best use of the Earth's precious wealth."

Domenic_S 5y ago
The point, I think, is that laypeople and scientists alike fall further and further into the fallacy of appeal to authority: 'a scientist said it's true, therefore it is true!' (for simplicity, true == a fact correctly expressed). That thing may be true, but the rising disdain for not accepting a conclusion when the evidence isn't presented alongside is worrisome. The difference between science and religion is that science draws conclusions from reproducible research. Yet - especially now - many people take the naked word of 'a scientist' the same way a religious fanatic takes the word of their spiritual leader. This definition gave me a lot of clarity: an expert is someone who has, can get, can make, or can cause to be made - and presents - evidence that supports their conclusions.

Out_of_Characte 5y ago

Statements of importance are indeed value judgements, That's why you have to argue that its universally good ( a virtue ) in order to get around the political stifle. This does happen quite alot but you don't always hear about it. The US happened to approve a 1 billion dollar funding request for Israel's Iron Dome. The vote was 420 to 9.

refenestrator 5y ago
But that's not a publicly salient culture issue in the US. It's a simple matter of do you want aipac backing you or your opponent in the next race. Easy calculation, no higher principles necessary.

lmkg 5y ago

The science community as a whole needs to do the work of all three. The work of an individual scientist may be able to focus on just the one, and their lives are easier if they work in a context that gives them that specificity of responsibility. But eventually, someone needs to do the work to convince people "science is trustworthy." And for a variety of reasons (both objective and social), scientists should be on the front lines of that work. The question of "this is important" is tricky because it must involve a two-way discussion with the audience. But there are cases where a scientist must be making that case, e.g. in order to procure funding.

mdavis6890 5y ago
> The science community as a whole needs to do the work of all three. This is exactly the source of the trouble. Hearing scientists project their value system onto everybody else destroys their credibility. If people felt that scientists were sticking to the facts and avoiding ideology and values, science would be better received all around. Whether or not the Earth is getting warmer, and the cause of that warming, are scientific questions. Also science is a discussion of possible remediations and their costs. Which remediation to choose, if any, is a question of values and outside the scope of science. Also important for science is being clear about levels of uncertainty and ranges of possible outcomes. Recent global temperatures have little uncertainty. Distant-past temperatures have a much higher level of uncertainty, and predictions about ranges of possible distant-future temperatures have yet more uncertainty. I never hear much about this from scientists or the media that cover them though.
- majormajor 5y ago
  > Whether or not the Earth is getting warmer, and the cause of that warming, are scientific questions. Also science is a discussion of possible remediations and their costs. Which remediation to choose, if any, is a question of values and outside the scope of science. So how do you propose scientists "stick to" the discussion of remediations of "we can remediate X by doing Y at expense Z" without it being portrayed maliciously as pesky interfering scientists saying "we should do Y"? The problem of lack of trust is hardly the sole responsibility of scientists here. Do you think discussing uncertainty more is going to raise trust or just be more fodder for the people with non-scientific reasons to oppose action? I propose scientists "only stick to the science" if and only if everyone else in the world sticks to their wheelhouse as well. Lotta citizens, politicians, and pundits out there without much training in making good ethical decisions either! As long as the output of a scientist will be interpreted through other people's political lenses its fair game for them to frame it politically too.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

burnished 5y ago

Is a scientist not also a citizen?