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Recognize that we need scientists as much as scientific dissidents. These days both seem in short supply. The dissidents are routinely "cancelled", e.g., duri
by Blackstrat 3y ago
Recognize that we need scientists as much as scientific dissidents. These days both seem in short supply. The dissidents are routinely "cancelled", e.g., during the COVID era. Big Science has been corrupted by government money worldwide. And as soon as one hears "scientific consensus" you know you're listening to a political statement not a scientific one. And that applies to climate change. Science is never conclusive. There's always the possibility of a different answer. The history of science illustrates that clearly. When the answer is "final", science is no longer the ongoing motivation.
- euix 3y agoThe entire Covid years and the way government and society responded was the most cynical thing I have ever witnessed in my life and it completely altered my worldview and the way I see government, society and people in general. Some reckoning on this is in the future is small catharsis.
- spookthesunset 3y agoSame here. I don’t think we’ll see any reckoning until all the people involved are long dead…
- RandomLensman 3y agoSeriously: why? We had things like conscription before but the Covid response was the one that altered your view?
- shwaj 3y agoMaybe the person wasn’t alive during conscription. They lived through Covid.
- tbrownaw 3y agoWe've had government suppression of dissent before - that "fire in a crowded theater" case was about anti-war advocacy - but it's been a while since anything really big and the Internet makes it much easier to watch happen in real time.
- RandomLensman 3y agoThe cold war had some "red scares" etc.
- didntcheck 3y agoYep. My faith in both specific institutes and "society" in general cratered, and it wasn't due to some Facebook meme telling me to arson a 5G tower. It was from watching the horse's mouth in full good faith and instead seeing brazen attempts to manufacture consent, "gaslight" last week's claims way, and spin the scientific method as "anti-science". And then the disappointment at seeing just how easily large amounts of society could be (gladfully) whipped into supporting almost any level of authoritarianism, up to and including literally celebrating the deaths of their "opponents", all while claiming to be the compassionate side concerned about public safety, and mostly from the political wing that claims to be our only line of defence against that sort of thing
- daveguy 3y agoGovernment money? Seriously? Would you rather Exxon, Phillip Morris and Pfizer fund the research? Private funds by Musk and Besos? And there is always the possibility of a different answer. But there's also the vast majority of evidence (with some political motivation) vs a striking lack of evidence (also with some political motivation). I'm going to err on the side of -- most people who dedicate their life to study something are honest about their study of that something.
- edgyquant 3y agoSee this is exactly what the other poster means. Your gut reaction is to shut down any dissent.
- lordnacho 3y agoHe's not shutting down anything, just pointing out the ludicrousness of the comment he was responding to. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DvFlBAvWsAA72Tq.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DvFlBAvWsAA72Tq.jpg
- lelanthran 3y agoWhat's the difference?
- aCoreyJ 3y agoWhat YOU did was an attempt to shutdown descent by attacking the poster instead of actually debating the issue
- lelanthran 3y agoYou're confusing me with some one else.
- zen928 3y ago
- throwaway4220 3y agoAnd extremely highly paid lobbyists will keep pointing to this to let their bosses continue doing whatever they want. So.. when do you pull the lever for action?
- agoose77 3y agoThis is a very hyperbolic statement, and makes the common mistake of framing science as built around a central corpus of knowledge, defended by personalities. Whilst science is a human endeavour, and individual scientists suffer all the same shortcomings that human beings exhibit, this is not how it is practised. Scientific consensus is a thing - you can literally gather N scientists in a room, and have them agree on principles and results. There will always be differences of opinion; for example, there are a huge number of interpretations of what a measurement means in quantum mechanics. But, good science is practised with an eye towards the limits of our understanding. For example, the standard model of physics explains nearly everything that we can observe, whilst we also know that there are some things that it can't. We also know that physical theories often seem to be simple, whereas the SM is complex - it likely is an effective theory. Knowing both of these things does not break the concept of consensus. Much of physics research is currently dedicated to figuring out how to break the standard model theories, despite the fact that it works so well. When you hear "consensus", no one is saying that each scientist would write down an identical essay on the subject. Rather it means broad-scale agreement, and a common understanding.
- madsbuch 3y agoJust like you, I think the above commenter points out that scientific consensus is not a scientific construct, but a political one. > politics: social relations involving intrigue to gain authority or power You need politics when working multiple people together. But in particular in scientific communities, you need to be able to superseede political, or institutional, ideas. This is what the original post talks about. The core scientific constructs is stuff like falsification, occam's razor, etc. The "mistake" seems to be a juxtaposition of science and the scientific community.
- jltsiren 3y agoScience is fundamentally about convincing other scientists that you are doing good science. The scientific method is just a garbage in, garbage out process. If you don't get other people to challenge you, you can't tell the difference between doing science and fooling yourself. No matter how much you try to question your judgment, you are always the easiest person in the world to fool.
- tonmoy 3y agoSince is never conclusive that is true, but some conclusions are closer to the truth than the other. Just because the earth is not exactly a sphere, doesn’t mean the scientific consensus that the earth is round is wrong. Same way just because we don’t understand everything about climate change, doesn’t mean we can disregard the consensus
- mc32 3y agoTo Wit, the CDC now says it’s okay to use [doctors to prescribe] Ivermectin to treat sars-cov-2 whereas before they denounced its use and the mainstream media derided it as horse paste.
- nradov 3y agoWhere did the CDC say that? The CDC doesn't even publish COVID-19 treatment protocols; those come from the NIH. And none of the large scale clinical trials have found ivermectin to be effective. https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/ https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/
- mc32 3y agohttps://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/o-t-lounge/ot-docs-the-fda-recognized-you-have-the-authority-to-prescribe-ivermectin-for-covid/109294660/ https://www.tigerdroppings.com/rant/o-t-lounge/ot-docs-the-f...
- wredue 3y agoThat’s not the CDC recommended the use of ivermectin. It is a court case stating that doctors are legally allowed to prescribe human safe variants if they so choose. It doesn’t have anything towards the effect of ivermectin on Covid.
- dahart 3y agoSaying that doctors have the “authority” to prescribe is not the same as recommending it. Additionally a lawyer’s statement taken out of context does not necessarily represent the organization’s stance or advice. It seems like the post you provided is making some unjustified assumptions.
- wredue 3y agoSource please. I don’t see anywhere that they recommend ivermectin. To that end, the problem was never ivermectin anyway. The problem was people buying horse dewormer from vet shops and self medicating. You guys take “hey, maybe don’t self medicate with medication meant for horses cause we don’t even know if this works, let alone what sorts of dosage or anything is safe and adequate” as a personal attack, and then go off the rails over it.
- dahart 3y agoWhat do you mean? There is scientific consensus that washing hands between medical procedures makes them safer. There is scientific consensus that the earth is round and is not the center of the solar system. These are not political statements. > Science is never conclusive. There’s always the possibility of a different answer. The history of science illustrates that clearly. What do you mean, can you give some examples? Which scientific conclusions might change? Do you mean that the earth might be flat after all? Or that your doctor not washing her hands before operating on you might be good for your health? Is non-zero ‘possibility’ being used as a justification to ignore the actual probability of a dissenting idea, even when almost all scientists agree? A small possibility is exactly that: unlikely, no?
- xhkkffbf 3y agoOkay, maybe there's "consensus" in your mind about "washing your hands', but it's not clear what that means. We need people questioning what is the best way to clean your hands. Maybe soap is good. Maybe soap poisons a few patients. Maybe isopropyl alcohol is good. Maybe some other kind of alcohol is better. I could go on. The point is that there could be some cases where a traditional application of soap and water is actually worse for the patients, the doctors, the nurses or someone else.
- xkcd-sucks 3y agoA better example would be "antibacterial" soap containing triclosan, on which the consensus has shifted fairly recently
- dahart 3y agoThis is making the same mistake that @Blackstrat made; the existence of subtleties doesn’t change the primary high level outcome. There is pretty much absolute consensus on whether doctors should wash their hands. We have lots and lots and lots of evidence that using any reasonable disinfectant cut hospital mortality rates by multiples compared to what they were before hand-washing was protocol, while soap poisoning in hospitals today is extremely rare and difficult to find (and BTW doesn’t even mean soap is the problem, it more likely means the doctor didn’t follow the rinse protocol.) What disinfectant product to use does have a minor effect on the margins of the outcomes, sure, and there is still some side-discussion about that, but there is no discussion about whether to wash hands. If you’re going to challenge the idea that there’s consensus, you must present and examine the magnitudes of the effects of each decision. I do not buy the argument that a sliver of a marginal effect challenges the primary outcome - and I especially don’t buy the argument that because you imagine there “could be” some cases, then consensus isn’t clear enough. One person in a million dying of soap poisoning has no real bearing on whether doctors should wash their hands, and doesn’t change or challenge the scientific consensus that doctors should wash hands.
- nitwit005 3y ago> And as soon as one hears "scientific consensus" you know you're listening to a political statement not a scientific one. Sure, but not in any sinister way. Politicians have to make decisions somehow. If everyone who's studied the problem says essentially the same thing, that's a good hint as to the right decision.
- cm2187 3y agoClimate change can hardly be called a science by the way. To be a science you need to make falsifiable claims. Without the ability to experiment, all you are doing is fitting some gigantic models to some historical data, and we all know how bad this can go.
- pfdietz 3y agoSo, astronomy is not a science? Because we can't do experiments on stars and galaxies. Astronomy is not only a science, it's the science that kicked off the scientific revolution in the 1600s. You don't need to be able to experiment to do science, you just need to be able to observe. Theories are tested against future observations. "Natural experiments" where something new happens are useful for this. An example in climate science was what happened after the Mt. Pinatubo eruption.
- seadan83 3y ago> Climate change can hardly be called a science by the way. To be a science you need to make falsifiable claims. It certainly does. - The increase in global average temperatures is correlated to water vapor - The increase in global average temperatures is correlated to methane - The increase in global average temperatures is correlated to CO2 Another example: - "there has been an increase in global average temperature" These are all falsifiable assertions and have been given due attention. I would be really skeptical of a perspective that claims climate change makes no falsifiable claims. > Without the ability to experiment, all you are doing is fitting some gigantic models to some historical data, and we all know how bad this can go. Fitting a gigantic model to historical data is a form of experimentation. A hypothesis is in some ways the act of creating a model to fit data and then to use that model as a tool for predictions. Fitting a gigantic model to historical data and seeing how it goes is exactly an experiment!
- watwut 3y agoScientific consensus is literally how science works. If there is no consensus yet, then the area is in development and you can't tell much conclusive about it. Which is valid stage of knowledge progress. But it does not mean no area should ever be considered mostly settled.
- chrischattin 3y agoNo. Consensus is not how science works at all.
- jamilton 3y agoIt is to some degree, isn't it? People don't personally replicate every study they cite and build off, they cite and build off studies that they believe to be trustworthy, part of which is determined by opinions of peers in the field (even if there's not a clear consensus one way or the other).
- chrischattin 3y agoNo. It's the opposite. All it takes is one single result to show a theory or body of "consensus" is in error.
- watwut 3y agoNo it does not. Science is full of contradictory results, that is why it is super easy to cherry pick studies. You can't tell anything until it is in scientific consensus stage, precisely because a single study rarely means that much.
- chrischattin 3y agoI'd argue that's more a characteristic of the publishing and peer review process in academia, not actual science.
- findalex 3y agoHere, here. Science = the scientific method. It should be nothing more.
- chrischattin 3y agoYes, exactly. I get irrationally angry when people say things like "believe the science". No! They entire point of the scientific method is I don't have to believe anything. I can replicate and verify the results for myself.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- manuelabeledo 3y ago> Recognize that we need scientists as much as scientific dissidents. What's a "scientific dissident" to a "scientist"? Because a scientist may be a dissident, but a dissident is not necessarily a scientist. > And as soon as one hears "scientific consensus" you know you're listening to a political statement not a scientific one. This is false. Let's take the recent news about that new room temperature superconductor. "Scientific consensus" means validity and reproducibility. Achieving results that validate the primary hypothesis is not a "political statement". > When the answer is "final", science is no longer the ongoing motivation. You have a warped view of what science is. History hasn't proved that science is "not conclusive", but that it is continuously evolving, adding layers to previously simpler answers, e.g. the newtonian concept of gravity hasn't been discarded by contemporary theories, just extended. It drives me mad when people talks about science like a series of revolutions that break with everything taken for granted until that point. This is not what happens. If anything, new science supersedes old science. What you describe is what happens when science collides with quackery. And yes, that applies to climate change deniers.