2 ms·

Academia has sold itself and the world that it is only scrutinizable unto itself. But this was not always the case. If you read scientific papers from 50 or 10

Academia has sold itself and the world that it is only scrutinizable unto itself. But this was not always the case. If you read scientific papers from 50 or 100 years ago, they are surprisingly readable. There also used to be much more involvement from "lay-scientists" and hobbyists.

jfengel 3y ago
That was easier to do 50 or 100 years ago. The longer we do science, the more we already know. Finding something novel gets harder and harder. It becomes less and less likely that you can find it without having spent a long time learning what's already known. Academics certainly could be better writers and communicators now, but non-scientists cannot expect to understand most work that required years of education before they could perform it. The public can be given a rapid education in it when it matters, but that rapid education isn't going to put them in a position to critique the work. And when the public mistakes that rapid education for a superior grasp of the topic, it becomes a huge drain on the academics' time to correct the misconceptions.
- legitster 3y ago
  Maybe this is true for some of the advanced sciences. But when it comes to some of the topics that get the most news coverage (psychology, public health, economics) you're not dealing with controlled experiments. So much of it is just random sampling and double blind studies. This work is good. But none of this work is particularly complicated or hard to understand - and so much of the "education" is busy work or learning the "inside baseball" of how to get meaningful results and how to get published. When we are talking about "trust the scientists" no one is really arguing that nuclear scientists or aeronautical engineers don't know what they are talking about. We're really talking about whether we should listen to an epidemiologist just because they have spent so much time looking at these studies (often conflicting!) that they can squint their eyes when they look at a set of data and give a more qualified off-the-cuff opinion.
vondur 3y ago
As the fields have become more and more specialized over the years, and the technology has increased, it's gets more difficult to write about subjects without using jargon and more complicated visualizations. As mentioned in other comments, having journalists with a science background would definitely help.

jfengel 3y ago

That was easier to do 50 or 100 years ago. The longer we do science, the more we already know. Finding something novel gets harder and harder. It becomes less and less likely that you can find it without having spent a long time learning what's already known. Academics certainly could be better writers and communicators now, but non-scientists cannot expect to understand most work that required years of education before they could perform it. The public can be given a rapid education in it when it matters, but that rapid education isn't going to put them in a position to critique the work. And when the public mistakes that rapid education for a superior grasp of the topic, it becomes a huge drain on the academics' time to correct the misconceptions.

legitster 3y ago
Maybe this is true for some of the advanced sciences. But when it comes to some of the topics that get the most news coverage (psychology, public health, economics) you're not dealing with controlled experiments. So much of it is just random sampling and double blind studies. This work is good. But none of this work is particularly complicated or hard to understand - and so much of the "education" is busy work or learning the "inside baseball" of how to get meaningful results and how to get published. When we are talking about "trust the scientists" no one is really arguing that nuclear scientists or aeronautical engineers don't know what they are talking about. We're really talking about whether we should listen to an epidemiologist just because they have spent so much time looking at these studies (often conflicting!) that they can squint their eyes when they look at a set of data and give a more qualified off-the-cuff opinion.

vondur 3y ago

As the fields have become more and more specialized over the years, and the technology has increased, it's gets more difficult to write about subjects without using jargon and more complicated visualizations. As mentioned in other comments, having journalists with a science background would definitely help.