4 ms·

I blame Carl Sagan[1]. Carl Sagan was the Martin Luther of science communication. He showed us how you could figure out the size of the Earth just by measuring

I blame Carl Sagan[1]. Carl Sagan was the Martin Luther of science communication. He showed us how you could figure out the size of the Earth just by measuring shadows at noon. He showed a vessel full of gases creating the precursors of life with just a little electricity. He reduced the history of the universe to a 1 hour PBS show. In short, he made science understandable to anyone. But just as the Reformation led to faith-healing and megachurch preachers, Sagan's teachings made it seem as if anyone could be a scientist. As long as a chain of reasoning made sense to you, then it was true! Take something like whether the earth goes around the sun. Sagan showed how Mars sometimes moves backwards in the sky, and he implies that this can only happen in a heliocentric model. In reality, of course, you need much more evidence to come up with the correct model. It wasn't until Newton could predict orbits from simple equations that there was no longer any doubt. But watching Sagan you get the idea that if you can just come up with ONE piece of evidence for whatever you believe, then that's enough to prove it! This is why flat-earthers rely on meme-like "evidence" that takes effort to refute. In the end, it's a trade-off. Do you want people to just trust authority or do you want people to think for themselves? If we want the latter (which I think we do) then we have to put up with those who are wrong. ----- [1] I love Carl Sagan. He was a huge influence on me, and I think he benefited society, even if I think his teachings also (ironically) stoked some pseudoscience.

itronitron 3y ago
Why call it pseudoscience? It's just science done poorly by someone doing science. We don't call a bad haircut a pseudo-haircut.
- paulddraper 3y ago
  Same as psuedostatistics. There are fundamental, objective principals. [1] Violate those, and it's not what it claims to be. A bad haircut doesn't claim to be something that it's not, and its goodness is subjective. [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pseudostatistical https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pseudostatistical
  - itronitron 3y ago
    Dude, the reference you provide does not support your claim that "There are fundamental, objective principals." Not sure if you are trying to be subversive or just lazy (or both).
    - paulddraper 3y ago
      Neither. Reference should have followed the word pseudostatistics
santiagobasulto 3y ago
Lol, this is a great comment.
nonethewiser 3y ago
It makes me think of the Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode where Dennis hypocritically appeals to authority in an effort to disprove creationism. The valuable point the skit makes is that there is a sort of “cult of science” where people mistake faith for reason and you have a bunch of science “believers” who dont realize it. Of course this is not what science really is. Personally, I have always been irked by phrases like “Science say” as if science itself is a centralized institution rather than a collection of people applying the scientific method. In a similar vein, I sometimes see posts of some natural phenomena (like ants changing colors after drinking dyed water) with captions like “Isnt science cool?” Im still trying to figure out why this irks me but its weird to imply science somehow caused this.
- GMoromisato 3y ago
  Lol--that's a great reference.
- nerpderp82 3y ago
  I was just mentioning to a friend of mine, a lady in her late 60s early 70s about spiders using electrostatics to travel. https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.102.012403 https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.102.0... And she remarked, "isn't evolution amazing! It figured out so many things" When someone says "Isn't science cool?", they are saying lots of things * I appreciate facts/truth * Knowing things is fun * Figuring things out is fun * There is so much we don't know about the universe I think you are putting to much semantic meaning into the grammar they are using to express their sentiments. Same goes for, "science says". It isn't enjoyable to discuss things and at the same time qualify every single statement.
  - nonethewiser 3y ago
    Its non sensical. Not minor. Electrostatics exists without science. The point is science is a tool for learning the truth, not the cause, nor the phenomena itself. It would make more sense to say “nature is cool.” Its like looking at a painting and saying “vision is so cool.” Except worse because at least in that example you are actually using the lens (vision) to look at the phenomena.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
aschearer 3y ago
> But just as the Reformation led to faith-healing and megachurch preachers Quite a leap. Break that one down... > Sagan's teachings made it seem as if anyone could be a scientist. As long as a chain of reasoning made sense to you, then it was true! How does Sagan give this impression? Namely that "as long as it makes sense to you, then it must be true." And why is this analogous to the Reformation? Seems like a non-sequiter.
- paulddraper 3y ago
  >> But just as the Reformation led to faith-healing and megachurch preachers > Quite a leap. Break that one down... Prior to the Reformation, you needed not just Truth but Authority as well. There was an actual hierarchy, and you respected that hierarchy. Luther said that any man could connect to God, be a spiritual leader, assemble a congregation. And so the number of religious sects increased from 1 to much more than 1, including for example faith healers and megachurches.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    There's no doubt that the Reformation resulted in a proliferation of Christian sects, but attributing megachurchs and faith healing to that seems bizarre to somebody who is not a Christian. The Christian bible says that Jesus himself was a faith healer. Innumerable Catholic saints have been faith healers, and faith healing in the form of Exorcism is still taught as real by the Roman Catholic Church to this day. And megachurchs? No Christian church is more 'mega' than the RCC. They share all the defining characteristics: Huge gaudy megastructures? Yes, Cathedrals. Money flowing up through the organization? The Vatican is decked in gold. Hierarchical with the preacher at top living opulently? This describes the Roman Catholic Church to a T. And Jesus himself is said to have preached to crowds of hundreds or thousands. The Reformation certainly lead to a splintering of Christian sects, but did not introduce faith healing and megachurches. These were already ancient, arguably originating characteristics of Christianity.
passion__desire 3y ago
People trust "authority" because they don't have time, resources, training to build the body of knowledge themselves. It is not feasable neither desirable for everyone to know about everything. Societies build chain of trust and that's why institutions are important. Think of authority as a function call in a big framework which provides an answer with reasoning for that answer. In my previous function calls, the authority provided answers properly. If I get a wrong answer, there is a "bug" somewhere in the system.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

itronitron 3y ago

Why call it pseudoscience? It's just science done poorly by someone doing science. We don't call a bad haircut a pseudo-haircut.

paulddraper 3y ago
Same as psuedostatistics. There are fundamental, objective principals. [1] Violate those, and it's not what it claims to be. A bad haircut doesn't claim to be something that it's not, and its goodness is subjective. [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pseudostatistical https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pseudostatistical
- itronitron 3y ago
  Dude, the reference you provide does not support your claim that "There are fundamental, objective principals." Not sure if you are trying to be subversive or just lazy (or both).
  - paulddraper 3y ago
    Neither. Reference should have followed the word pseudostatistics

santiagobasulto 3y ago

Lol, this is a great comment.

nonethewiser 3y ago

It makes me think of the Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode where Dennis hypocritically appeals to authority in an effort to disprove creationism. The valuable point the skit makes is that there is a sort of “cult of science” where people mistake faith for reason and you have a bunch of science “believers” who dont realize it. Of course this is not what science really is. Personally, I have always been irked by phrases like “Science say” as if science itself is a centralized institution rather than a collection of people applying the scientific method. In a similar vein, I sometimes see posts of some natural phenomena (like ants changing colors after drinking dyed water) with captions like “Isnt science cool?” Im still trying to figure out why this irks me but its weird to imply science somehow caused this.

GMoromisato 3y ago
Lol--that's a great reference.
nerpderp82 3y ago
I was just mentioning to a friend of mine, a lady in her late 60s early 70s about spiders using electrostatics to travel. https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.102.012403 https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.102.0... And she remarked, "isn't evolution amazing! It figured out so many things" When someone says "Isn't science cool?", they are saying lots of things * I appreciate facts/truth * Knowing things is fun * Figuring things out is fun * There is so much we don't know about the universe I think you are putting to much semantic meaning into the grammar they are using to express their sentiments. Same goes for, "science says". It isn't enjoyable to discuss things and at the same time qualify every single statement.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  Its non sensical. Not minor. Electrostatics exists without science. The point is science is a tool for learning the truth, not the cause, nor the phenomena itself. It would make more sense to say “nature is cool.” Its like looking at a painting and saying “vision is so cool.” Except worse because at least in that example you are actually using the lens (vision) to look at the phenomena.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

aschearer 3y ago

> But just as the Reformation led to faith-healing and megachurch preachers Quite a leap. Break that one down... > Sagan's teachings made it seem as if anyone could be a scientist. As long as a chain of reasoning made sense to you, then it was true! How does Sagan give this impression? Namely that "as long as it makes sense to you, then it must be true." And why is this analogous to the Reformation? Seems like a non-sequiter.

paulddraper 3y ago
>> But just as the Reformation led to faith-healing and megachurch preachers > Quite a leap. Break that one down... Prior to the Reformation, you needed not just Truth but Authority as well. There was an actual hierarchy, and you respected that hierarchy. Luther said that any man could connect to God, be a spiritual leader, assemble a congregation. And so the number of religious sects increased from 1 to much more than 1, including for example faith healers and megachurches.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  There's no doubt that the Reformation resulted in a proliferation of Christian sects, but attributing megachurchs and faith healing to that seems bizarre to somebody who is not a Christian. The Christian bible says that Jesus himself was a faith healer. Innumerable Catholic saints have been faith healers, and faith healing in the form of Exorcism is still taught as real by the Roman Catholic Church to this day. And megachurchs? No Christian church is more 'mega' than the RCC. They share all the defining characteristics: Huge gaudy megastructures? Yes, Cathedrals. Money flowing up through the organization? The Vatican is decked in gold. Hierarchical with the preacher at top living opulently? This describes the Roman Catholic Church to a T. And Jesus himself is said to have preached to crowds of hundreds or thousands. The Reformation certainly lead to a splintering of Christian sects, but did not introduce faith healing and megachurches. These were already ancient, arguably originating characteristics of Christianity.

passion__desire 3y ago

People trust "authority" because they don't have time, resources, training to build the body of knowledge themselves. It is not feasable neither desirable for everyone to know about everything. Societies build chain of trust and that's why institutions are important. Think of authority as a function call in a big framework which provides an answer with reasoning for that answer. In my previous function calls, the authority provided answers properly. If I get a wrong answer, there is a "bug" somewhere in the system.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]