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Society has made a God out of science. Don't get me wrong, science is a fantastic invention and should be taken seriously. Anyone who dismisses science without

Society has made a God out of science. Don't get me wrong, science is a fantastic invention and should be taken seriously. Anyone who dismisses science without thought or reason is crazy. But as you saw during the pandemic and through this, we've lost some sense of reason when a flawed human in a white coat says something. We need to take what they say seriously but with a grain of salt that they get things wrong.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
“Science” is just the process of continuously evaluating and re-evaluating what you know using data and experiments, and changing what you “know” (or your mental model) to align with the new data. What people deify is certain conclusions, for myriad reasons.
- guraf 3y ago
  Enough of this no true scottsmanship. "Scientific consensus" is taken as gospel by many people. Most on this very board. They don't care to learn how the consensus was reached (usually happens by just ignoring detractors). They just care to feel superior to people outside the consensus because "duh, science".
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    Under the assumption that no one has the capacity to perform all the science experiments and analyze all the data themselves to model the world, individuals would have to rely on a proxy such as other people telling them the results of science experiments. Given how complicated nature or whatever around and within us is, there will be many shades of gray. What is looked down upon is (usually) conclusions reached from methods outside of the scientific method, such as predictions of one’s personal life based on a deck of cards or medical interventions with no explanation of cause of action or experimental numbers to rule out random-ness.
  - standardUser 3y ago
    You want to think it's "taken as gospel", maybe because you have an ax to grind, but the reality is the scientific consensus on most topics is taken as "better than anything else I have access to, or any bullshit I'll make up in my own head". And when it comes time to make a personal decision - do I take the pill or not take the pill - we all have to use the best information we have, which almost all of the time will be the scientific consensus. Though I'll agree there is a phenomenon that occurs when a vocal group starts criticizing a scientific consensus, usually for obvious political reasons, that causes many people to double-down and express too much rigid faith in that consensus. I don't like that either.
  - spacebanana7 3y ago
    The scientific method is limited by the historical method, unless you perform the experiment yourself. Determining the correctness of somebody’s experiment is pointless if the underlying observations are intentionally incorrect. Just as you should be cautious trusting Josephus to be critical of the Romans, you should be cautious trusting a researcher report observations contrary to the interests of their social institutions.
cf141q5325 3y ago
The key term here is confidence. It was bad enough when it turned out that many people who really should understand p-values didnt. But this claiming overwhelming confidence to better manage patients is just despicable, how ever well meant it is. Its incredibly short sighted and ruins trust. Stuff is just complicated.
dennis_jeeves2 3y ago
>Society has made a God out of science. With conventional religion somewhat on the wane, science has become the new religion: a unquestioning belief in the experts, just like the way people rarely question the word of the priest/preacher in a traditional religion. There's something innately human which predisposes people to beliefs. One of them being just low IQ, An IQ of hundred does not go very far, for the complex lives that we need lead.

lotsofpulp 3y ago

“Science” is just the process of continuously evaluating and re-evaluating what you know using data and experiments, and changing what you “know” (or your mental model) to align with the new data. What people deify is certain conclusions, for myriad reasons.

guraf 3y ago
Enough of this no true scottsmanship. "Scientific consensus" is taken as gospel by many people. Most on this very board. They don't care to learn how the consensus was reached (usually happens by just ignoring detractors). They just care to feel superior to people outside the consensus because "duh, science".
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  Under the assumption that no one has the capacity to perform all the science experiments and analyze all the data themselves to model the world, individuals would have to rely on a proxy such as other people telling them the results of science experiments. Given how complicated nature or whatever around and within us is, there will be many shades of gray. What is looked down upon is (usually) conclusions reached from methods outside of the scientific method, such as predictions of one’s personal life based on a deck of cards or medical interventions with no explanation of cause of action or experimental numbers to rule out random-ness.
- standardUser 3y ago
  You want to think it's "taken as gospel", maybe because you have an ax to grind, but the reality is the scientific consensus on most topics is taken as "better than anything else I have access to, or any bullshit I'll make up in my own head". And when it comes time to make a personal decision - do I take the pill or not take the pill - we all have to use the best information we have, which almost all of the time will be the scientific consensus. Though I'll agree there is a phenomenon that occurs when a vocal group starts criticizing a scientific consensus, usually for obvious political reasons, that causes many people to double-down and express too much rigid faith in that consensus. I don't like that either.
- spacebanana7 3y ago
  The scientific method is limited by the historical method, unless you perform the experiment yourself. Determining the correctness of somebody’s experiment is pointless if the underlying observations are intentionally incorrect. Just as you should be cautious trusting Josephus to be critical of the Romans, you should be cautious trusting a researcher report observations contrary to the interests of their social institutions.

cf141q5325 3y ago

The key term here is confidence. It was bad enough when it turned out that many people who really should understand p-values didnt. But this claiming overwhelming confidence to better manage patients is just despicable, how ever well meant it is. Its incredibly short sighted and ruins trust. Stuff is just complicated.

dennis_jeeves2 3y ago

>Society has made a God out of science. With conventional religion somewhat on the wane, science has become the new religion: a unquestioning belief in the experts, just like the way people rarely question the word of the priest/preacher in a traditional religion. There's something innately human which predisposes people to beliefs. One of them being just low IQ, An IQ of hundred does not go very far, for the complex lives that we need lead.