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All of science is model building, or will advance to it (from counting leaves to biochemical models of photosynthesis). When we say we have an understanding of

All of science is model building, or will advance to it (from counting leaves to biochemical models of photosynthesis). When we say we have an understanding of some phenomenon, it means that we have a model that correlates with observations (simplified). It's a failure of an education system that leaves its citizens with no conception of what science is, or how 'progress' is made. That's become very clear with regards to Dr. Fauci and the CDC. They can explain all they want about the current state of understanding (modeling) when they are called out by the public as charlatans when the insight and thus guidelines change.

hpcjoe 5y ago
This 1000x. I am flabbergasted at the attacks on scientists explaining current understanding, until I realize that the people attacking very rarely comprehend the process. This isn't a slap at people attacking scientists, it's very much an indictment of our educational and scicomm system, that we say "here is a fully functional adult, who doesn't have the slightest clue as to how this stuff actually works, and we are totally fine with it." As well as experts saying "insert random domain specific jargon here" for said individuals to consume. I've (PhD in physics) taken long (6-8hour) car rides with my Sensei (2 years of college) to tournaments. On the way, we talk about science, and I put in consumable, non-jargon terms, things like the big bang, quantum physics, steller lifecycles, etc. I'm not an expert in some of these, and out of practice in others, but being able to explain to an intelligent and curious person is feature IMO for scientists. One should not be mysterious, or assume mantles of superiority. We all put pants on, one leg at a time. Being able to explain the joy of discovery in an approachable way is a skill. One I'd love to see in graduate schools. My own anecdote on the crackpot bits ... I'd started at SGI in 1995 ABD. I was writing, and it was going slowly. My manager knew I was a physics type, and he forwarded me an email he'd received from someone on a new theory of relativity. Don't ask me why someone would email SGI (a workstation company) about this. I don't know. He asked me to look it over. This is like 4 weeks into the job (my first full time professional job post grad school). I thought this was an assignment worth doing. So I reviewed their paper. I caught a bunch of sign and other related errors they made, and wrote up a summary. He asked me to interact with them. So I sent it back to the people. I got all sorts of weirdness coming back from them. It was a conspiracy to keep their breakthrough out of the public mind. "No", I said, "it was a set of mathematical errors." I pointed out that if they fixed them, they would get normal special relativity. They didn't want to. And complained to my manager. Thus my introduction to internet cranks.
crooked-v 5y ago
Re: CDC guidance, we also have the basic cultural problem in the US that for a significant amount of the population, ever publicly changing your mind about any topic is seen as a sign of moral weakness, or even by default perceived as a lie.
- gwright 5y ago
  > in the US that for a significant amount of the population Any reason to think this is a distinctly US phenomena as opposed to a more widespread phenomena?
  - Jensson 5y ago
    USA is by far the most religious of the developed nations.
    - elzbardico 5y ago
      The problem with the US is not that it is too religious, but the flavour of religiousness in the US leads to those things. Other than the Anglos most of Europe was pretty much pious some 50/6o years ago and it was never a problem as it is in the US.
- bendbro 5y ago
  > ever publicly changing your mind about any topic That's pure gloss. It isn't simply "changing your mind," it's changing the social and economic reality of 330,000,000 people. If you fuck up that messaging (science is absolute!) or fuck up plans (flatten the curve! -> eradicate covid! -> lol nvm its endemic now) you and all who support you deserve criticism. Echoing my point on messaging, the director of the CDC says: “I have frequently said ‘we’re going to lead with the science’…I think public heard that as ‘science is foolproof. Science is black and white. Science is immediate and we get the answer and then we make the decision based on the answer'... and the truth is science is gray". https://mobile.twitter.com/AlexThomp/status/1499810656056397831 https://mobile.twitter.com/AlexThomp/status/1499810656056397...
waterhouse 5y ago
The trouble with the CDC is that they talk as though they're pure, disinterested scientists following the evidence, but often it seems they're actually making decisions for political reasons, and then fudging the science so they can claim it supports their decisions. Their toolbox for fudging the science includes dismissing (or, better, completely ignoring) inconvenient studies; praising weak studies that support their position, and acting like the studies' flaws don't exist; and failing to apply obvious logical reasoning. Some of these could be interpreted as incompetence, which in some cases it probably is; other times it becomes blatant enough that incompetence seems implausible. Here's one example, when, around the time of Omicron, the CDC changed their post-infection isolation guidelines from 10 days to 5 days. The CDC's announcement literally said "The change is motivated by science demonstrating that the majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurs early in the course of illness, generally in the 1-2 days prior to onset of symptoms and the 2-3 days after". However, as a (CDC-favorable) Washington Post article said, "New CDC guidelines were spurred by worries omicron surge could lead to breakdown in essential services: Health officials worried that mass infections could result in tens of thousands of Americans unable to work"; "The guidance by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “was based on the anticipation of a large number of cases might impact societal function,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in an interview with The Post." Detailed discussion here (including discussion of lots of problems with the guidelines themselves): https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uGvYtExLobWz2RixS/cdc-changes-isolation-guidelines https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uGvYtExLobWz2RixS/cdc-change... I mean, bullshit. This is most definitely not motivated primarily by science demonstrating a distribution of transmission. If it was, the guidelines would have changed when they learned about this, rather than exactly when the guidelines otherwise needed to change. [...] So in the interest of making sure people could do [essential services], we’re shortening the period to five days. Understandable? Definitely. I can’t argue with it. I’m all for ‘following the economics.’ [...] But every time you say you are ‘following the science’ when you’re transparently not doing that on any level, you’re burning your credibility and the commons that much more. It needs to stop.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  They were worried about the quarantine and isolation requirements taking large numbers out of work, not that the mass infections would be acute or disabling.

hpcjoe 5y ago

This 1000x. I am flabbergasted at the attacks on scientists explaining current understanding, until I realize that the people attacking very rarely comprehend the process. This isn't a slap at people attacking scientists, it's very much an indictment of our educational and scicomm system, that we say "here is a fully functional adult, who doesn't have the slightest clue as to how this stuff actually works, and we are totally fine with it." As well as experts saying "insert random domain specific jargon here" for said individuals to consume. I've (PhD in physics) taken long (6-8hour) car rides with my Sensei (2 years of college) to tournaments. On the way, we talk about science, and I put in consumable, non-jargon terms, things like the big bang, quantum physics, steller lifecycles, etc. I'm not an expert in some of these, and out of practice in others, but being able to explain to an intelligent and curious person is feature IMO for scientists. One should not be mysterious, or assume mantles of superiority. We all put pants on, one leg at a time. Being able to explain the joy of discovery in an approachable way is a skill. One I'd love to see in graduate schools. My own anecdote on the crackpot bits ... I'd started at SGI in 1995 ABD. I was writing, and it was going slowly. My manager knew I was a physics type, and he forwarded me an email he'd received from someone on a new theory of relativity. Don't ask me why someone would email SGI (a workstation company) about this. I don't know. He asked me to look it over. This is like 4 weeks into the job (my first full time professional job post grad school). I thought this was an assignment worth doing. So I reviewed their paper. I caught a bunch of sign and other related errors they made, and wrote up a summary. He asked me to interact with them. So I sent it back to the people. I got all sorts of weirdness coming back from them. It was a conspiracy to keep their breakthrough out of the public mind. "No", I said, "it was a set of mathematical errors." I pointed out that if they fixed them, they would get normal special relativity. They didn't want to. And complained to my manager. Thus my introduction to internet cranks.

crooked-v 5y ago

Re: CDC guidance, we also have the basic cultural problem in the US that for a significant amount of the population, ever publicly changing your mind about any topic is seen as a sign of moral weakness, or even by default perceived as a lie.

gwright 5y ago
> in the US that for a significant amount of the population Any reason to think this is a distinctly US phenomena as opposed to a more widespread phenomena?
- Jensson 5y ago
  USA is by far the most religious of the developed nations.
  - elzbardico 5y ago
    The problem with the US is not that it is too religious, but the flavour of religiousness in the US leads to those things. Other than the Anglos most of Europe was pretty much pious some 50/6o years ago and it was never a problem as it is in the US.
bendbro 5y ago
> ever publicly changing your mind about any topic That's pure gloss. It isn't simply "changing your mind," it's changing the social and economic reality of 330,000,000 people. If you fuck up that messaging (science is absolute!) or fuck up plans (flatten the curve! -> eradicate covid! -> lol nvm its endemic now) you and all who support you deserve criticism. Echoing my point on messaging, the director of the CDC says: “I have frequently said ‘we’re going to lead with the science’…I think public heard that as ‘science is foolproof. Science is black and white. Science is immediate and we get the answer and then we make the decision based on the answer'... and the truth is science is gray". https://mobile.twitter.com/AlexThomp/status/1499810656056397831 https://mobile.twitter.com/AlexThomp/status/1499810656056397...

waterhouse 5y ago

The trouble with the CDC is that they talk as though they're pure, disinterested scientists following the evidence, but often it seems they're actually making decisions for political reasons, and then fudging the science so they can claim it supports their decisions. Their toolbox for fudging the science includes dismissing (or, better, completely ignoring) inconvenient studies; praising weak studies that support their position, and acting like the studies' flaws don't exist; and failing to apply obvious logical reasoning. Some of these could be interpreted as incompetence, which in some cases it probably is; other times it becomes blatant enough that incompetence seems implausible. Here's one example, when, around the time of Omicron, the CDC changed their post-infection isolation guidelines from 10 days to 5 days. The CDC's announcement literally said "The change is motivated by science demonstrating that the majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurs early in the course of illness, generally in the 1-2 days prior to onset of symptoms and the 2-3 days after". However, as a (CDC-favorable) Washington Post article said, "New CDC guidelines were spurred by worries omicron surge could lead to breakdown in essential services: Health officials worried that mass infections could result in tens of thousands of Americans unable to work"; "The guidance by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “was based on the anticipation of a large number of cases might impact societal function,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in an interview with The Post." Detailed discussion here (including discussion of lots of problems with the guidelines themselves): https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uGvYtExLobWz2RixS/cdc-changes-isolation-guidelines https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uGvYtExLobWz2RixS/cdc-change... I mean, bullshit. This is most definitely not motivated primarily by science demonstrating a distribution of transmission. If it was, the guidelines would have changed when they learned about this, rather than exactly when the guidelines otherwise needed to change. [...] So in the interest of making sure people could do [essential services], we’re shortening the period to five days. Understandable? Definitely. I can’t argue with it. I’m all for ‘following the economics.’ [...] But every time you say you are ‘following the science’ when you’re transparently not doing that on any level, you’re burning your credibility and the commons that much more. It needs to stop.

selimthegrim 5y ago
They were worried about the quarantine and isolation requirements taking large numbers out of work, not that the mass infections would be acute or disabling.