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"Trust the science" hasn't made people more rational, it has made "science" more dogmatic. I wonder what governments and the media will latch onto once they hav

by ayngg 5y ago

"Trust the science" hasn't made people more rational, it has made "science" more dogmatic. I wonder what governments and the media will latch onto once they have eroded the trust in science, because there aren't many other trustworthy institutions left.

HPsquared 5y ago
When politics is mixed with any other field, that field generally becomes a subfield of politics - not the other way round.
- theaeolist 5y ago
  Much like mixing garbage into food. You get garbage, not food.
HumanReadable 5y ago
I agree, but I still consider it a step up to what we had before. There's always been institutions whom people are told to trust. For a thousand years it was the church. I think for most people to trust credentialed scientists from government institutions is a vast step up, even if they have sorely disappointed during this pandemic.
- zx85wes 5y ago
  You mean the people who told us not to wear masks? I trust science, but that doesn't mean I trust every scientist.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    If you really trusted science, you would trust that information and knowledge is dynamic and they don’t always have the right answer at the beginning, just an answer that gets changed over time as more knowledge pours in. I’m guessing you prefer your scientists to be absolutely right at the beginning right?
    - simiones 5y ago
      Anthony Fauci has explicitly admitted on camera that the reason "masks don't work" was promoted to the public initially was to conserve PPE for the highest-risk health workers [0]. It was NOT a case of the science changing: > So, why weren't we told to wear masks in the beginning? > "Well, the reason for that is that we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply. And we wanted to make sure that the people namely, the health care workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected." [0] https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-directive-coronavirus https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-dire...
      - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        But they explicitly told us that at the time: “don’t rush out and buy masks, we don’t have enough for healthcare workers as it is, you don’t need them more than they do.” The right just took some sound bites and excerpted the rest of the discussion to “prove” that Fauci was lying, while everyone else was rolling their eyes, and still are. People hear the things that support the story they want to believe, and then ignore everything else that doesn’t support their preferred narrative. You don’t need a PhD in psych to realize that.
        mandmandam 5y ago
        scotty79 5y ago
        Remember their boss was Trump who didn't believe it's a thing at all.
        mandmandam 5y ago
        https://www.huffpost.com/entry/scientists-react-to-cdc-coronavirus-airborne_n_5f6a0070c5b655acbc701b2c https://www.huffpost.com/entry/scientists-react-to-cdc-coron... https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fauci-said-masks-not-really-effective-in-keeping-out-virus-email-reveals/ar-AAKCZ0c https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fauci-said-masks-not-reall... Some trivially obtainable evidence from mainstream outlets, for the silent downvoters trying to memory hole these facts.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- larryflint 5y ago
  That's a humbling point. Thank you.
DrBazza 5y ago
Don't trust the people that report the science though. The gutter press has to sensationalise stories to sell the newspapers and get viewers. It's a race to the bottom. A quarter not vaccinated!!! vs 75% vaccinated so far. Guess which one they run with? Let's not forget cherry-picking the science too, and that the media is a massive echo chamber. There's no problem with science, but like any other industry, it has its own language, which isn't accessible to the average person, so someone has to simplify it. Journalists should not be that 'someone'.
finite_jest 5y ago
TBH, I think "Trust the science" is often used as a euphemism for "Trust authority", which isn't always good advice. Also, the science itself doesn't really work as advertised. There is this book titled "Betrayers of Truth" [1] which I reluctantly recommend on that. The authors are sometimes a bit too harsh (e.g. about Millikan), but I think they have a point overall. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betrayers_of_the_Truth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betrayers_of_the_Truth
tim333 5y ago
"Trust the science" I think has been corrupted a bit in an Orwellian way by the likes of >Dr. Fauci On GOP Criticism: ‘Attacks On Me, Quite Frankly, Are Attacks On Science’ whereas I'm more into Feynman: The principle of science, the definition, almost, is the following: The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific 'truth'. War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Fauci Is Science.

by ayngg 5y ago

HPsquared 5y ago

When politics is mixed with any other field, that field generally becomes a subfield of politics - not the other way round.

theaeolist 5y ago
Much like mixing garbage into food. You get garbage, not food.

HumanReadable 5y ago

I agree, but I still consider it a step up to what we had before. There's always been institutions whom people are told to trust. For a thousand years it was the church. I think for most people to trust credentialed scientists from government institutions is a vast step up, even if they have sorely disappointed during this pandemic.

zx85wes 5y ago
You mean the people who told us not to wear masks? I trust science, but that doesn't mean I trust every scientist.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  If you really trusted science, you would trust that information and knowledge is dynamic and they don’t always have the right answer at the beginning, just an answer that gets changed over time as more knowledge pours in. I’m guessing you prefer your scientists to be absolutely right at the beginning right?
  - simiones 5y ago
    Anthony Fauci has explicitly admitted on camera that the reason "masks don't work" was promoted to the public initially was to conserve PPE for the highest-risk health workers [0]. It was NOT a case of the science changing: > So, why weren't we told to wear masks in the beginning? > "Well, the reason for that is that we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply. And we wanted to make sure that the people namely, the health care workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected." [0] https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-directive-coronavirus https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-dire...
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      But they explicitly told us that at the time: “don’t rush out and buy masks, we don’t have enough for healthcare workers as it is, you don’t need them more than they do.” The right just took some sound bites and excerpted the rest of the discussion to “prove” that Fauci was lying, while everyone else was rolling their eyes, and still are. People hear the things that support the story they want to believe, and then ignore everything else that doesn’t support their preferred narrative. You don’t need a PhD in psych to realize that.
      - mandmandam 5y ago
        scotty79 5y ago
        Remember their boss was Trump who didn't believe it's a thing at all.
        mandmandam 5y ago
        https://www.huffpost.com/entry/scientists-react-to-cdc-coronavirus-airborne_n_5f6a0070c5b655acbc701b2c https://www.huffpost.com/entry/scientists-react-to-cdc-coron... https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fauci-said-masks-not-really-effective-in-keeping-out-virus-email-reveals/ar-AAKCZ0c https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fauci-said-masks-not-reall... Some trivially obtainable evidence from mainstream outlets, for the silent downvoters trying to memory hole these facts.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
larryflint 5y ago
That's a humbling point. Thank you.

DrBazza 5y ago

Don't trust the people that report the science though. The gutter press has to sensationalise stories to sell the newspapers and get viewers. It's a race to the bottom. A quarter not vaccinated!!! vs 75% vaccinated so far. Guess which one they run with? Let's not forget cherry-picking the science too, and that the media is a massive echo chamber. There's no problem with science, but like any other industry, it has its own language, which isn't accessible to the average person, so someone has to simplify it. Journalists should not be that 'someone'.

finite_jest 5y ago

TBH, I think "Trust the science" is often used as a euphemism for "Trust authority", which isn't always good advice. Also, the science itself doesn't really work as advertised. There is this book titled "Betrayers of Truth" [1] which I reluctantly recommend on that. The authors are sometimes a bit too harsh (e.g. about Millikan), but I think they have a point overall. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betrayers_of_the_Truth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betrayers_of_the_Truth

tim333 5y ago

"Trust the science" I think has been corrupted a bit in an Orwellian way by the likes of >Dr. Fauci On GOP Criticism: ‘Attacks On Me, Quite Frankly, Are Attacks On Science’ whereas I'm more into Feynman: The principle of science, the definition, almost, is the following: The test of all knowledge is experiment. Experiment is the sole judge of scientific 'truth'. War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Fauci Is Science.