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Scientists frequently engage in scientific debate with each other.

rqtwteye 3y ago
It's fine if done in good faith. Debating somebody like Kennedy is a losing proposition. He will bury you with a ton of nonsense that "feels right". Refuting every point takes way more time than you have in a debate.
athenot 3y ago
Productive scientific debating is usually done in writing, or over long periods of time, not in entertainment-driven TV shows. It's unfortunate both are called "debating" but mean something very different.
- badlucklottery 3y ago
  This. For example, most journals will specifically select peer reviewers who have published papers with conclusions/results counter to the one being reviewed. And those reviewers will take a run at you. Journals do this because printing papers that need a retraction isn't in their best interest. If they can, they'll shoot down a paper before it gets that far.
mikeyouse 3y ago
Sure - but do they engage in scientific debates with non-experts? There just isn't any value with that. Imagine someone like Paul Graham "Debating" RFK on whether Wifi causes "the blood brain barrier to open and allow toxins in" -- the level of misunderstanding you'd have to correct and education you would have to provide just to get them to a point to understand how WiFi works and how non-ionizing radiation propagates is just massive. The base of their understanding is the essence of "Not even wrong".
goodpoint 3y ago
Being on Joe Rogan's show has nothing to do with a scientific debate. The host and the platform prevent meaningful and deep communication. That requires writing a book or at least a paper. An online "debate" on youtube is just a ton of shocking oversimplification, if not dishonest misleading stuff.
- moate 3y ago
  It's also bad for accurate science. Unless you have a team of researchers that can feed 100% accurate data talking points to you in real time, someone is going to make a "mistaken" claim at some point that could lead the debate to an entirely inaccurate direction. Improv and theater training would be better than scientific understanding in this arena, so why is one group trying to pretend it isn't?

It's fine if done in good faith. Debating somebody like Kennedy is a losing proposition. He will bury you with a ton of nonsense that "feels right". Refuting every point takes way more time than you have in a debate.

athenot 3y ago

Productive scientific debating is usually done in writing, or over long periods of time, not in entertainment-driven TV shows. It's unfortunate both are called "debating" but mean something very different.

badlucklottery 3y ago
This. For example, most journals will specifically select peer reviewers who have published papers with conclusions/results counter to the one being reviewed. And those reviewers will take a run at you. Journals do this because printing papers that need a retraction isn't in their best interest. If they can, they'll shoot down a paper before it gets that far.

mikeyouse 3y ago

Sure - but do they engage in scientific debates with non-experts? There just isn't any value with that. Imagine someone like Paul Graham "Debating" RFK on whether Wifi causes "the blood brain barrier to open and allow toxins in" -- the level of misunderstanding you'd have to correct and education you would have to provide just to get them to a point to understand how WiFi works and how non-ionizing radiation propagates is just massive. The base of their understanding is the essence of "Not even wrong".

goodpoint 3y ago

Being on Joe Rogan's show has nothing to do with a scientific debate. The host and the platform prevent meaningful and deep communication. That requires writing a book or at least a paper. An online "debate" on youtube is just a ton of shocking oversimplification, if not dishonest misleading stuff.

moate 3y ago
It's also bad for accurate science. Unless you have a team of researchers that can feed 100% accurate data talking points to you in real time, someone is going to make a "mistaken" claim at some point that could lead the debate to an entirely inaccurate direction. Improv and theater training would be better than scientific understanding in this arena, so why is one group trying to pretend it isn't?