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Everyone should be skeptical of all sources. But out of the myriad of various opinions coming from politicians, CEOs, propagandists, flat out out idiots, and e

Everyone should be skeptical of all sources. But out of the myriad of various opinions coming from politicians, CEOs, propagandists, flat out out idiots, and everything else in between, scientists are arguably the class of truth sayers you should be least skeptical of. So while the title is technically true and I agree with the premise of the article, the article itself is wholly unnecessary at best and damaging at worst. Until we begin to be more skeptical in general and learn to distrust all the other mouthpieces vomiting lies every day, let's trust the scientists.

rossdavidh 3y ago
The essence of science is not trusting an expert, but requiring evidence and repeatability. Scientists aren't more trustworthy than those other groups for no reason, it's because they work in a field where work can be double-checked. As the repeatability crisis has shown, many believe their work will not be double-checked, and once they believe that, they become less and less worthy of that trust.
- robot_no_421 3y ago
  Right, that's why my first sentence was "everyone should be skeptical of every source".... But if I'm forced to trust someone (and most of us are on a daily basis), I'd rather trust the guys whose whole job revolves around the principle of "we require evidence and repeatable results before we believe you" than pretty much every other profession. Completely separate from my above point, I'd also say that I do believe scientists are on average more trustworthy than other career workers at a personal level. It's a profession that tends to attract people concerned with objective truth and rational logic. Just like how politics tends to attract those who want to work with people and the police force attracts people who are comfortable with violence. At least from my personal, anecdotal view.
  - rossdavidh 3y ago
    This all makes sense to me, and I partially agree. However, people whose whole job revolves around "you must provide evidence of something that gets published in a journal, on a regular basis, even if it is never of enough interest for anyone else to try to replicate it", with an extra helping of "if it's confirming people's biases enough to get you speaking gigs or a best-selling book, you get a pay raise", then you might over time start to attract a slightly different crowd.
intrasight 3y ago
My take as well. And you don't have to be an expert to be skeptical.
tetrep 3y ago
> But out of the myriad of various opinions coming from politicians, CEOs, propagandists, flat out out idiots, and everything else in between, scientists are arguably the class of truth sayers you should be least skeptical of. If the CEO of a gambling company said, "Gambling is good." Do you think that would be more or less effective propaganda that if the CEO paid someone else, let's say someone in a white lab coat, to say the same? I think that scientists are more likely to abuse the trust because it's implicit. You can't expect to abuse someone's trust in you (e.g. as a scientist) if you don't expect people to trust you. All the people you listed as untrustworthy are obviously untrustworthy, which is what makes them not a serious risk. Saying "I really want to trust scientists" is the same as saying "If you want to exploit me, use a scientist to do it." I don't think you need to look any further than the Tobacco industry to see why blindly trusting scientists is not a viable mitigation to propaganda. I don't really have a good answer for how to make a good decision when you're ignorant (trusting scientists would make this easier), and we're all ignorant about most things. Being skeptical doesn't give you good knowledge, it just mitigates absorbing bad knowledge. So you're kinda stuck if you need to e.g. make a risk based decision about COVID and you don't trust scientists.
- robot_no_421 3y ago
  >If the CEO of a gambling company said, "Gambling is good." Do you think that would be more or less effective propaganda that if the CEO paid someone else, let's say someone in a white lab coat, to say the same? Difference is that a the guy in the lab coat has to conduct experiments on it, get them peer reviewed, publish a paper on it, and lay out all the assumptions and methodologies before it's actually "science". So it's not as simple as getting a guy in a lab coat to say it. Especially when all the other guys in lab coats are saying "that guy is lying and his methodology is garbage".
  - tetrep 3y ago
    And that's why everyone knows there's no relationship between autism and vaccines? I think you're underestimating the ability for people to abuse trust, i.e. lie. You can't say "trust scientist A but not scientist B" unless you've got some way to judge them. Which we don't as we're the ignorant laymen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccines_and_autism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccines_and_autism edit: Global warming would have been a better example. You can point to scientists on "both sides" that each say the other is wrong. No amount of "blindly trust scientists" makes it better.
fkingmagnets 3y ago
I don't trust scientists, in particular doctors, when they're effectively bought by big pharma. I don't care if you have ten degrees from Harvard Medical School if you also take a 7 figure paycheck from big pharma, you're a big pharma rep as far as I'm concerned. Same with economists who shill for various groups, and so on. I suppose I can trust astrophysicists because so far we have no evidence they've been bought by alien civilizations.
oefrha 3y ago
As a former scientist, I would say scientists who talk to the media are much less trustworthy than scientists in general, and scientists in fields frequently featured in the media are much less trustworthy than the rest.

rossdavidh 3y ago

The essence of science is not trusting an expert, but requiring evidence and repeatability. Scientists aren't more trustworthy than those other groups for no reason, it's because they work in a field where work can be double-checked. As the repeatability crisis has shown, many believe their work will not be double-checked, and once they believe that, they become less and less worthy of that trust.

robot_no_421 3y ago
Right, that's why my first sentence was "everyone should be skeptical of every source".... But if I'm forced to trust someone (and most of us are on a daily basis), I'd rather trust the guys whose whole job revolves around the principle of "we require evidence and repeatable results before we believe you" than pretty much every other profession. Completely separate from my above point, I'd also say that I do believe scientists are on average more trustworthy than other career workers at a personal level. It's a profession that tends to attract people concerned with objective truth and rational logic. Just like how politics tends to attract those who want to work with people and the police force attracts people who are comfortable with violence. At least from my personal, anecdotal view.
- rossdavidh 3y ago
  This all makes sense to me, and I partially agree. However, people whose whole job revolves around "you must provide evidence of something that gets published in a journal, on a regular basis, even if it is never of enough interest for anyone else to try to replicate it", with an extra helping of "if it's confirming people's biases enough to get you speaking gigs or a best-selling book, you get a pay raise", then you might over time start to attract a slightly different crowd.

intrasight 3y ago

My take as well. And you don't have to be an expert to be skeptical.

tetrep 3y ago

> But out of the myriad of various opinions coming from politicians, CEOs, propagandists, flat out out idiots, and everything else in between, scientists are arguably the class of truth sayers you should be least skeptical of. If the CEO of a gambling company said, "Gambling is good." Do you think that would be more or less effective propaganda that if the CEO paid someone else, let's say someone in a white lab coat, to say the same? I think that scientists are more likely to abuse the trust because it's implicit. You can't expect to abuse someone's trust in you (e.g. as a scientist) if you don't expect people to trust you. All the people you listed as untrustworthy are obviously untrustworthy, which is what makes them not a serious risk. Saying "I really want to trust scientists" is the same as saying "If you want to exploit me, use a scientist to do it." I don't think you need to look any further than the Tobacco industry to see why blindly trusting scientists is not a viable mitigation to propaganda. I don't really have a good answer for how to make a good decision when you're ignorant (trusting scientists would make this easier), and we're all ignorant about most things. Being skeptical doesn't give you good knowledge, it just mitigates absorbing bad knowledge. So you're kinda stuck if you need to e.g. make a risk based decision about COVID and you don't trust scientists.

robot_no_421 3y ago
>If the CEO of a gambling company said, "Gambling is good." Do you think that would be more or less effective propaganda that if the CEO paid someone else, let's say someone in a white lab coat, to say the same? Difference is that a the guy in the lab coat has to conduct experiments on it, get them peer reviewed, publish a paper on it, and lay out all the assumptions and methodologies before it's actually "science". So it's not as simple as getting a guy in a lab coat to say it. Especially when all the other guys in lab coats are saying "that guy is lying and his methodology is garbage".
- tetrep 3y ago
  And that's why everyone knows there's no relationship between autism and vaccines? I think you're underestimating the ability for people to abuse trust, i.e. lie. You can't say "trust scientist A but not scientist B" unless you've got some way to judge them. Which we don't as we're the ignorant laymen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccines_and_autism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccines_and_autism edit: Global warming would have been a better example. You can point to scientists on "both sides" that each say the other is wrong. No amount of "blindly trust scientists" makes it better.

fkingmagnets 3y ago

I don't trust scientists, in particular doctors, when they're effectively bought by big pharma. I don't care if you have ten degrees from Harvard Medical School if you also take a 7 figure paycheck from big pharma, you're a big pharma rep as far as I'm concerned. Same with economists who shill for various groups, and so on. I suppose I can trust astrophysicists because so far we have no evidence they've been bought by alien civilizations.

oefrha 3y ago

As a former scientist, I would say scientists who talk to the media are much less trustworthy than scientists in general, and scientists in fields frequently featured in the media are much less trustworthy than the rest.