6 ms·

The inflated promise of science education

56 points by andyjohnson0 4y ago

DangMeatSlurper 4y ago
Cryptonic 4y ago
The tabaco and oil industry (and other huge non-sustainabe and dangerous business models) cultivated this trust issue over decades with their silence denial methods like FLACC. It will not be easy against such powerfully interests, if even possible. One of my best sport buddies today told me that he won't come to global climate strike this year, because (true story) China used so much concrete for infrastructure lately that the earth will move which will make the poles melt anyways... Wtf. He "read it somewhere, it looked official, some institutional webpage". I was so deeply disappointed of the guy. We are doomed as long as spreading intentional disinformation via manipulated masses, fabricated mostly by PR agencies and think tanks is not a crime. Shit like this even brought Trump in office and keeps people like Putin or Erdogan in it. Spreading lies and manipulating people has nothing to do with free speech. Actually it will become our undoing I believe. This is the core of our problems in these times or maybe ever has been.
- Nasrudith 4y ago
  Who decides the truth without it being a zero-steps path to abuse?
  - throwaway14356 4y ago
    We don't have to go for the truth even if we believe it to be obtainable. We can start by linking to accessible sources and requiring exact citations. Wikipedia has been doing it for ages. Then we may require impactful publications to be available to the public including a comment section for professionals in that field. then we can do an itemized bill disclosing who paid for the study again with a link to the entity explaining why they did and a comment section with the finances for professionals only. Have fines depending on the size of the org and the size of the audience and require retractions, updates and/or disclosure of the objections raised. That way it would be hard to publish that chocolate helps losing weight (as the funding is revealed) but if you manage to do it the citations by others would eventually link to retractions.
    - Nasrudith 4y ago
      Wikipedia doesn't have keys to power. If you want the truth to die screaming in agony you tie power to whom is decided is "right".
  - lern_too_spel 4y ago
    The scientific method. If you ask how the hypothesis that Chinese concrete moved the Earth was tested, you won't receive a response.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > The tabaco and oil industry (and other huge non-sustainabe and dangerous business models) cultivated this trust issue over decades There's this popular myth that nobody knew smoking was bad for you until the 1960s. My dad would laugh at this, saying when he was a boy (1930's) his fellows called them "coffin nails". Doctors then always advised their patients to quit smoking. In the 1960s, I saw a smoker's lung on display in a bottle of formaldehyde. It was black and looked horribly diseased. Another non-smoker's lung was also there, it looked pink and normal. A doctor who ever saw a smoker's lung would have to be crazy to not conclude smoking was bad for your health. It wasn't exactly rocket science.
- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  I think your friend was looking for any reason to not spend their time involved with an activist cause they don’t care about on a personal level. I have a theory that since this sentiment is difficult to put into words, where an individual is disinclined to just say “nah I don’t really care enough”, they reach for dubious sources that make them sound more ridiculous than if they stated their subjective opinion bluntly.
- heresie-dabord 4y ago
  > We are doomed as long as spreading intentional disinformation via manipulated masses, fabricated mostly by PR agencies and think tanks is not a crime. Not only is it not a crime to promote falsehood, lunacy, and propaganda, it is simply easier, more lucrative, and politcally useful for the media business to participate in the intellectual gerrymandering of a population. On this very topic, but from half a century ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_(1976_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_(1976_film)
cm42 4y ago
I frequently seek out the original press releases and they're usually pretty clear, but are then dumbed down to something thought to be digestible by the general public. "Masks work!" say Experts. "No they don't!" say these other two. Which "masks"? "Work" by what metric? Under what circumstances? Or, is it as the True Believers and Most Faithfully Devoted to Science might have it: that all masks are effective against all things in all situations (or at least certainly have some kind of effect)? With regard to <masks>, The Science™ really has never been controversial and has not changed significantly since the start of the pandemic, but they used "masks won't work [to keep you from inhaling it] (so don't buy them all)" early on to ease supply chain problems, followed by "masks do work [like covering your mouth when you cough]", resulting in what might have been the dumbest two years of public discourse in the history of humanity, inclusive of The Burning Years, as at least it might be said that they genuinely didn't know whether or not witches floated. There was never any ambiguity or confusion among Science™ or Medicine™ or Public Health Policy™ here - only among the loud and clueless - 1000% the result of mismanaged communications and a thousand know-nothings echoing calls (largely along Red and Blue lines) to Do The Thing or Not Do The Thing. Perhaps we need to create a new degree program for, among other things, interpreting and reporting on press releases such that extremely basic facts and terms of art aren't mixed up. (See also: Fig 1a. "Journalists' Guide to Aircraft" and Fig 1b. "Journalists' Guide to Firearms", Fig 2. Any news article with Quantum, Hacking, or Crypto- in the title)
- brigandish 4y ago
  > With regard to <masks>, The Science™ really has never been controversial and has not changed significantly since the start of the pandemic That is, in actual fact, not the case. From an article at the beginning of the pandemic published by Oxford uni's Centre for Evidence Based Medicine (CEMB): > Evidence from 14 trials on the use of masks vs. no masks was disappointing: it showed no effect in either healthcare workers or in community settings. We could also find no evidence of a difference between the N95 and other types of masks but the trials comparing the two had not been carried in aerosol-generating procedures. It goes on, and helpfully points out the problems with these studies that means it would be hasty to use them as the final word. > So we got into this situation unprepared with a faulty evidence base and hotly debated practices, after two decades of “pandemic preparedness”. You'll note that the debate ended with the British Medical Journal's[2] executive editor, a proponent of masks who states that they think CEMB's review and subsequent articles on the subject are mistaken, defending the CEMB's views from being censored by Facebook: > A disagreement among experts, especially about interpretation of a study, is a common occurrence. It is the usual business of science. I wish I could make that bold and quoted. > Only, Facebook didn’t see it that way. The social media platform that allows statements about injecting bleach to prevent covid-19, as well as calls to behead the leading US expert on pandemics,67 decreed that Heneghan and Jefferson should be censured for misinformation after they reposted their Spectator article on the site. The Science™ certainly isn't settled on this, to portray as such does a disservice to the actual pursuit of truth. And that after lamenting bias in reporting. > Perhaps we need to create a new degree program You mean, like the CEMB has?[3] > Our team research, practice and disseminate evidence-based medicine in health care decision making, and are committed to improving healthcare by fostering wider communication of high quality evidence, by promoting the principles of EBM through engagement, knowledge sharing, research and education. [1] https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-masks-on-or-off/ https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-masks-on-or-off/ [2] https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4586 https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4586 [3] https://www.cebm.ox.ac.uk/about-us/about-cebm https://www.cebm.ox.ac.uk/about-us/about-cebm
iroh2727 4y ago
When science does not serve people, and merely the interests of those with capital, it is natural that some people will want to reject it. Though, ideally we can find a middle ground. I guess there are many causes for anti-science sentiment, but interestingly, part of it comes from being "too objective". Positivism often fails at trying find truth that's useful/empowering to individual people, even if it is good at mastering nature/growing economies. We're seeing history repeat itself. Overabundance of positivist rationality at the cost of human subjectivity is precisely what the Counter-Enlightenment and Romantics were reacting to. It's also what sociologists such as Max Weber spoke about, and Marx, and especially the philosophers of the Frankfurt School (e.g. Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marcuse). Let's hope we can find a new Romanticism, to come to value the subjective in addition to the objective as a society, to create science like literature that's actually empowering to people. Otherwise, radical rejections of objective truth—e.g. the Flat Earth movement, fascism—are natural, albeit deluded responses, as has been seen historically. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > there are many causes for anti-science sentiment There are many scientists who infuse their scientific pronouncements with opinions and politics.
bruce511 4y ago
"Ahh" , the scientist laments, "if only they had sufficient data they would make the right choice." This is just smart people being dumb because they're science smart, but people dumb. Firstly, you cannot reason someone out of a position they have not been reasoned into. Secondly, people believe what they believe because it suits them to believe it. "I don't care about the science of vaccines, I am scared of injecting something into my body." Thirdly, follow the money. Smoking might be bad for you, but making cigarettes is big business. With big social change comes big shifts in money. Thus coal ignores climate change, because to do otherwise is suicide. Fourthly there's a trust problem. If you know your leader lies, or acts in bad faith, then by extension they all do [1]. If all leaders lie or act in bad faith then I no longer trust any leader. I assume you are telling me something to help you, not help me. Ultimately the problem is not one of data (give the people data, and the tools (science) to interpret that data) but rather the implications of change, The abandonment of existing social circle, The financial loss, The improvement of others at my expense. Science can't solve these issues, because they aren't science issues. [1] if I assume the opposite, that only my leader lies, then clearly following him is stupid, and I am not stupid, qed.
- phdelightful 4y ago
  > you cannot reason someone out of a position they have not been reasoned into Yes you can, that’s one of the best things about reason. I see this phrase pop up from time to time and I guess it’s just too cute to die
  - jhbadger 4y ago
    Exactly. If that were the case, it would be impossible for people raised to be religious as children to become atheists as adults when they've realized that the evidence for their religion doesn't hold up, but this is very common.
  - heresie-dabord 4y ago
    I understand the expression to be shorthand for the principle that a person will defend a comfortable bunker position stubbornly and with main force. Changing the person's thinking will require significant energy and may exhaust your resources. Your adversary may die in that bunker. But there's an entire economic system that got your opponent to enter the position and believe in it.
enviclash 4y ago
One to one mentoring has been systematically underestimated in scientific education, content helps less than commentary on how to ...
aaron695 4y ago
helen___keller 4y ago
Adopting beliefs that conflict with your preexisting belief system is incredibly difficult. It’s arduous and confusing. It’s not as simple as looking at one piece of evidence and saying “oh I was wrong”. This is because beliefs form a web of knowledge, and they reinforce each other. On the other hand, adopting evidence based beliefs is very very easy when those beliefs line up with your existing belief system. If you’ve ever tried to, say, talk an anti vaxxer into taking a COVID vaccine this becomes very obvious. The discussion notably is not straightforward. It’s not “here’s the report saying it reduces hospitalizations and deaths” “oh I can’t refute that okay” It’s more like “here’s the report saying it reduces hospitalizations and deaths” “that report is lying because Fauci ordered it, here’s a headline i saw that there were tons of deaths in the Israeli vaccine trial, and here’s a link that describes the evil peoples intentions with the vaccine” Instead of convincing them with evidence you’ve forked into 3 separate arguments (trust in validity of peer review + what happened in the Israeli trial + can you trust this article that claims fauci and bill gates are satanic cultists) And that’s without diving into the ocean of human bias that allow us to reinforce our belief system with little effort.
gmarx 4y ago
"Follow the science!" implies that science can determine an exactly correct public policy but this is nonsense. Public policy is all about tradeoffs,e.g. excess deaths for economics and mental health. It has to take into account how people want to live and their emotional reactions and all the unpredictable complex effects of human behavior. The scientist can say what he thinks would happen to cases in New York City if 95% of people wore surgical masks whenever they left the house and (if he is being honest) how confident he is in that prediction. How to balance that predicted effect's benefits for society against the negative effects of requiring this is absolutely not up to the scientist and is no more in his field of expertise than it is in mine

56 points by andyjohnson0 4y ago

The tabaco and oil industry (and other huge non-sustainabe and dangerous business models) cultivated this trust issue over decades with their silence denial methods like FLACC. It will not be easy against such powerfully interests, if even possible. One of my best sport buddies today told me that he won't come to global climate strike this year, because (true story) China used so much concrete for infrastructure lately that the earth will move which will make the poles melt anyways... Wtf. He "read it somewhere, it looked official, some institutional webpage". I was so deeply disappointed of the guy. We are doomed as long as spreading intentional disinformation via manipulated masses, fabricated mostly by PR agencies and think tanks is not a crime. Shit like this even brought Trump in office and keeps people like Putin or Erdogan in it. Spreading lies and manipulating people has nothing to do with free speech. Actually it will become our undoing I believe. This is the core of our problems in these times or maybe ever has been.

Nasrudith 4y ago
Who decides the truth without it being a zero-steps path to abuse?
- throwaway14356 4y ago
  We don't have to go for the truth even if we believe it to be obtainable. We can start by linking to accessible sources and requiring exact citations. Wikipedia has been doing it for ages. Then we may require impactful publications to be available to the public including a comment section for professionals in that field. then we can do an itemized bill disclosing who paid for the study again with a link to the entity explaining why they did and a comment section with the finances for professionals only. Have fines depending on the size of the org and the size of the audience and require retractions, updates and/or disclosure of the objections raised. That way it would be hard to publish that chocolate helps losing weight (as the funding is revealed) but if you manage to do it the citations by others would eventually link to retractions.
  - Nasrudith 4y ago
    Wikipedia doesn't have keys to power. If you want the truth to die screaming in agony you tie power to whom is decided is "right".
- lern_too_spel 4y ago
  The scientific method. If you ask how the hypothesis that Chinese concrete moved the Earth was tested, you won't receive a response.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
WalterBright 4y ago
> The tabaco and oil industry (and other huge non-sustainabe and dangerous business models) cultivated this trust issue over decades There's this popular myth that nobody knew smoking was bad for you until the 1960s. My dad would laugh at this, saying when he was a boy (1930's) his fellows called them "coffin nails". Doctors then always advised their patients to quit smoking. In the 1960s, I saw a smoker's lung on display in a bottle of formaldehyde. It was black and looked horribly diseased. Another non-smoker's lung was also there, it looked pink and normal. A doctor who ever saw a smoker's lung would have to be crazy to not conclude smoking was bad for your health. It wasn't exactly rocket science.
DiggyJohnson 4y ago
I think your friend was looking for any reason to not spend their time involved with an activist cause they don’t care about on a personal level. I have a theory that since this sentiment is difficult to put into words, where an individual is disinclined to just say “nah I don’t really care enough”, they reach for dubious sources that make them sound more ridiculous than if they stated their subjective opinion bluntly.
heresie-dabord 4y ago
> We are doomed as long as spreading intentional disinformation via manipulated masses, fabricated mostly by PR agencies and think tanks is not a crime. Not only is it not a crime to promote falsehood, lunacy, and propaganda, it is simply easier, more lucrative, and politcally useful for the media business to participate in the intellectual gerrymandering of a population. On this very topic, but from half a century ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_(1976_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_(1976_film)

cm42 4y ago

I frequently seek out the original press releases and they're usually pretty clear, but are then dumbed down to something thought to be digestible by the general public. "Masks work!" say Experts. "No they don't!" say these other two. Which "masks"? "Work" by what metric? Under what circumstances? Or, is it as the True Believers and Most Faithfully Devoted to Science might have it: that all masks are effective against all things in all situations (or at least certainly have some kind of effect)? With regard to <masks>, The Science™ really has never been controversial and has not changed significantly since the start of the pandemic, but they used "masks won't work [to keep you from inhaling it] (so don't buy them all)" early on to ease supply chain problems, followed by "masks do work [like covering your mouth when you cough]", resulting in what might have been the dumbest two years of public discourse in the history of humanity, inclusive of The Burning Years, as at least it might be said that they genuinely didn't know whether or not witches floated. There was never any ambiguity or confusion among Science™ or Medicine™ or Public Health Policy™ here - only among the loud and clueless - 1000% the result of mismanaged communications and a thousand know-nothings echoing calls (largely along Red and Blue lines) to Do The Thing or Not Do The Thing. Perhaps we need to create a new degree program for, among other things, interpreting and reporting on press releases such that extremely basic facts and terms of art aren't mixed up. (See also: Fig 1a. "Journalists' Guide to Aircraft" and Fig 1b. "Journalists' Guide to Firearms", Fig 2. Any news article with Quantum, Hacking, or Crypto- in the title)

brigandish 4y ago
> With regard to <masks>, The Science™ really has never been controversial and has not changed significantly since the start of the pandemic That is, in actual fact, not the case. From an article at the beginning of the pandemic published by Oxford uni's Centre for Evidence Based Medicine (CEMB): > Evidence from 14 trials on the use of masks vs. no masks was disappointing: it showed no effect in either healthcare workers or in community settings. We could also find no evidence of a difference between the N95 and other types of masks but the trials comparing the two had not been carried in aerosol-generating procedures. It goes on, and helpfully points out the problems with these studies that means it would be hasty to use them as the final word. > So we got into this situation unprepared with a faulty evidence base and hotly debated practices, after two decades of “pandemic preparedness”. You'll note that the debate ended with the British Medical Journal's[2] executive editor, a proponent of masks who states that they think CEMB's review and subsequent articles on the subject are mistaken, defending the CEMB's views from being censored by Facebook: > A disagreement among experts, especially about interpretation of a study, is a common occurrence. It is the usual business of science. I wish I could make that bold and quoted. > Only, Facebook didn’t see it that way. The social media platform that allows statements about injecting bleach to prevent covid-19, as well as calls to behead the leading US expert on pandemics,67 decreed that Heneghan and Jefferson should be censured for misinformation after they reposted their Spectator article on the site. The Science™ certainly isn't settled on this, to portray as such does a disservice to the actual pursuit of truth. And that after lamenting bias in reporting. > Perhaps we need to create a new degree program You mean, like the CEMB has?[3] > Our team research, practice and disseminate evidence-based medicine in health care decision making, and are committed to improving healthcare by fostering wider communication of high quality evidence, by promoting the principles of EBM through engagement, knowledge sharing, research and education. [1] https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-masks-on-or-off/ https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-masks-on-or-off/ [2] https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4586 https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4586 [3] https://www.cebm.ox.ac.uk/about-us/about-cebm https://www.cebm.ox.ac.uk/about-us/about-cebm

iroh2727 4y ago

When science does not serve people, and merely the interests of those with capital, it is natural that some people will want to reject it. Though, ideally we can find a middle ground. I guess there are many causes for anti-science sentiment, but interestingly, part of it comes from being "too objective". Positivism often fails at trying find truth that's useful/empowering to individual people, even if it is good at mastering nature/growing economies. We're seeing history repeat itself. Overabundance of positivist rationality at the cost of human subjectivity is precisely what the Counter-Enlightenment and Romantics were reacting to. It's also what sociologists such as Max Weber spoke about, and Marx, and especially the philosophers of the Frankfurt School (e.g. Adorno, Horkheimer, and Marcuse). Let's hope we can find a new Romanticism, to come to value the subjective in addition to the objective as a society, to create science like literature that's actually empowering to people. Otherwise, radical rejections of objective truth—e.g. the Flat Earth movement, fascism—are natural, albeit deluded responses, as has been seen historically. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism

WalterBright 4y ago
> there are many causes for anti-science sentiment There are many scientists who infuse their scientific pronouncements with opinions and politics.

bruce511 4y ago

"Ahh" , the scientist laments, "if only they had sufficient data they would make the right choice." This is just smart people being dumb because they're science smart, but people dumb. Firstly, you cannot reason someone out of a position they have not been reasoned into. Secondly, people believe what they believe because it suits them to believe it. "I don't care about the science of vaccines, I am scared of injecting something into my body." Thirdly, follow the money. Smoking might be bad for you, but making cigarettes is big business. With big social change comes big shifts in money. Thus coal ignores climate change, because to do otherwise is suicide. Fourthly there's a trust problem. If you know your leader lies, or acts in bad faith, then by extension they all do [1]. If all leaders lie or act in bad faith then I no longer trust any leader. I assume you are telling me something to help you, not help me. Ultimately the problem is not one of data (give the people data, and the tools (science) to interpret that data) but rather the implications of change, The abandonment of existing social circle, The financial loss, The improvement of others at my expense. Science can't solve these issues, because they aren't science issues. [1] if I assume the opposite, that only my leader lies, then clearly following him is stupid, and I am not stupid, qed.

phdelightful 4y ago
> you cannot reason someone out of a position they have not been reasoned into Yes you can, that’s one of the best things about reason. I see this phrase pop up from time to time and I guess it’s just too cute to die
- jhbadger 4y ago
  Exactly. If that were the case, it would be impossible for people raised to be religious as children to become atheists as adults when they've realized that the evidence for their religion doesn't hold up, but this is very common.
- heresie-dabord 4y ago
  I understand the expression to be shorthand for the principle that a person will defend a comfortable bunker position stubbornly and with main force. Changing the person's thinking will require significant energy and may exhaust your resources. Your adversary may die in that bunker. But there's an entire economic system that got your opponent to enter the position and believe in it.

enviclash 4y ago

One to one mentoring has been systematically underestimated in scientific education, content helps less than commentary on how to ...

aaron695 4y ago

helen___keller 4y ago

Adopting beliefs that conflict with your preexisting belief system is incredibly difficult. It’s arduous and confusing. It’s not as simple as looking at one piece of evidence and saying “oh I was wrong”. This is because beliefs form a web of knowledge, and they reinforce each other. On the other hand, adopting evidence based beliefs is very very easy when those beliefs line up with your existing belief system. If you’ve ever tried to, say, talk an anti vaxxer into taking a COVID vaccine this becomes very obvious. The discussion notably is not straightforward. It’s not “here’s the report saying it reduces hospitalizations and deaths” “oh I can’t refute that okay” It’s more like “here’s the report saying it reduces hospitalizations and deaths” “that report is lying because Fauci ordered it, here’s a headline i saw that there were tons of deaths in the Israeli vaccine trial, and here’s a link that describes the evil peoples intentions with the vaccine” Instead of convincing them with evidence you’ve forked into 3 separate arguments (trust in validity of peer review + what happened in the Israeli trial + can you trust this article that claims fauci and bill gates are satanic cultists) And that’s without diving into the ocean of human bias that allow us to reinforce our belief system with little effort.

gmarx 4y ago

"Follow the science!" implies that science can determine an exactly correct public policy but this is nonsense. Public policy is all about tradeoffs,e.g. excess deaths for economics and mental health. It has to take into account how people want to live and their emotional reactions and all the unpredictable complex effects of human behavior. The scientist can say what he thinks would happen to cases in New York City if 95% of people wore surgical masks whenever they left the house and (if he is being honest) how confident he is in that prediction. How to balance that predicted effect's benefits for society against the negative effects of requiring this is absolutely not up to the scientist and is no more in his field of expertise than it is in mine