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> Almost nobody is "anti-science". Last I checked: - 15% of Americans don't believe in Climate Change[0] - 37% believe God created man in our current form

> Almost nobody is "anti-science". Last I checked: - 15% of Americans don't believe in Climate Change[0] - 37% believe God created man in our current form within the last ~10k years (i.e. don't believe in evolution)[1] I don't think these are just rounding errors. They're large enough numbers that you should know multiple people who hold these beliefs unless you're in a strong bubble. I'm obviously with you in news and pop-sci being terrible. I hate IFuckingLoveScience. They're actually just IFuckingLoveClickbait. My point was literally about this bullshit. 90% of the time it is news and pop-sci miscommunicating papers. Where they clearly didn't bother to talk to authors and likely didn't even read the paper. "Scientists say <something scientists didn't actually say>". You see this from eating chocolate, drinking a glass of red wine, to eating red meat or processed meat. There are nuggets of truth in those things but they're about just as accurate as the grandma that sued McDonalds over coffee that was too hot. You sure bet this stuff creates distrust in science [0] https://record.umich.edu/articles/nearly-15-of-americans-deny-climate-change-study-finds/ https://record.umich.edu/articles/nearly-15-of-americans-den... [1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/647594/majority-credits-god-humankind-not-creationism.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/647594/majority-credits-god-hum...

vixen99 1y ago
The stats you mention seem to suggest you are a believer in `The Science` - an anti scientific idea if ever there was one and one that's undergoing erosion day by day.
- godelski 1y ago
  I'll bite, what's "The Science" Me? I barely believe in the results of my experiments. But I also know what this poll is intending to ask and yeah, I read enough papers, processed enough data, did enough math, and tracked enough predictions that ended up coming true. That's enough to convince me it's pretty likely that those spending a fuck more time on it (and are the ones making those predictions that came true!) probably know what they're talking about.
pessimizer 1y ago
According to your model, scientists who believe in God are anti-science. That's almost weirder than declaring that 15% of people not believing in anthropogenic global warming is some sort of crisis. It's a theory that seems to fit the data (with caveats), not an Axiom of Science. It's actually bizarre that 85% of people trust Science so much that they would believe in something that they have never seen any direct evidence of. That's a result of marketing. The public don't believe in global warming because it's "correct"; they have no idea if it's correct, and they often believe in things that are wrong that people in white coats on television tell them.
- Ray20 1y ago
  Climatologists have certainly invested much more in PR than geologists. So much so that their activities now look more like a global cult than science.
- godelski 1y ago
  > According to your model, scientists who believe in God are anti-science. In a way, yes. But every scientist I know that also believes in God is not shy in admitting their belief is unscientific. The reason I'm giving this a bit of a pass is because in science we need things that are falsifiable. The burden of proof should be on those believing in God. But such a belief is not falsifiable. You can't prove or disprove God. If they aren't pushy, they're okay with admitting that, and don't make a big deal out of it then I don't really care. That's just being a decent person. But that's a very different thing than not believing in things we have strong physical evidence for, strong mathematical theories, and a long record of making counter factual predictions. The great thing about science is it makes predictions. Climate science has been making pretty good ones since the 80's. Every prediction comes with error bounds. Those are tightening but the climate today matches those predictions within error. That's falsifiable
somenameforme 1y ago
I think one of the most important 'social values' for science to thrive is a culture with a freedom to disagree on essentially anything. In most of every era where there was rapid scientific progress from the Greeks to the Islamic Golden Age to the Renaissance and beyond, there was also rich, and often times rather virulent, disagreements over even the most sacred of things. Some of those disagreements were well founded, some were... not. It's only in the eras where disagreement becomes taboo that science starts to slow to a crawl and in many cases essentially die. Disagreeing with some consensus is not "anti-science". The term doesn't even make any sense, which is because it's a political and not a scientific term. I mean imagine if we claimed everybody who happens to believe MOND is more likely than WIMPs as an explanation for dark matter, to be "anti-science". It's just absolutely stupid. Yet we do exactly that on other topics where suddenly you must agree with the consensus or you're just "anti-science"? I mean again, it makes no sense at all.
- catlifeonmars 1y ago
  I don’t think that’s quite right. Disagreement for the sake of disagreement is not particularly meaningful. The basis for science is iteration on the scientific method. Which is to say: observe -> hypothesize -> falsify. Anti science means to make claims that have no basis in that process or to categorically reject the body of work that was based on that process.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - somenameforme 1y ago
    People disagree because they hold a different opinion. In many eras publicly expressing differing opinions, let alone publicly challenging established ones, becomes difficult for various reasons - cultural, political, social, even economic. And I think this is, in general, the natural state of society. When people think something is right, changing their mind is often not realistically possible. And this includes even the greatest of scientists. For instance none other than Einstein rejected a probabilistic interpretation of quantum physics, the Copenhagen Interpretation, all the way to his death. Many of his most famous quotes like 'God does not play dice with the universe.' or 'Spooky action at a distance.' were essentially sardonic mocking of such an interpretation, the exact one that we hold as the standard today. It was none other than Max Planck that remarked, 'Science advances one funeral at a time' [1], precisely because of this issue. And so freedom to express, debate, and have 'wrong ideas' in the public mindshare is quite critical, because it may very well be that those wrong ideas are simply the standard of truth tomorrow. But most societies naturally turn against this, because they believe they already know the truth, and fear the possibility of society being misled away from that truth. And so it's quite natural to try to clamp down, implicitly or explicitly, on public dissenting views, especially if they start to gain traction. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck's_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck's_principle

vixen99 1y ago

The stats you mention seem to suggest you are a believer in `The Science` - an anti scientific idea if ever there was one and one that's undergoing erosion day by day.

godelski 1y ago
I'll bite, what's "The Science" Me? I barely believe in the results of my experiments. But I also know what this poll is intending to ask and yeah, I read enough papers, processed enough data, did enough math, and tracked enough predictions that ended up coming true. That's enough to convince me it's pretty likely that those spending a fuck more time on it (and are the ones making those predictions that came true!) probably know what they're talking about.

pessimizer 1y ago

According to your model, scientists who believe in God are anti-science. That's almost weirder than declaring that 15% of people not believing in anthropogenic global warming is some sort of crisis. It's a theory that seems to fit the data (with caveats), not an Axiom of Science. It's actually bizarre that 85% of people trust Science so much that they would believe in something that they have never seen any direct evidence of. That's a result of marketing. The public don't believe in global warming because it's "correct"; they have no idea if it's correct, and they often believe in things that are wrong that people in white coats on television tell them.

Ray20 1y ago
Climatologists have certainly invested much more in PR than geologists. So much so that their activities now look more like a global cult than science.
godelski 1y ago
> According to your model, scientists who believe in God are anti-science. In a way, yes. But every scientist I know that also believes in God is not shy in admitting their belief is unscientific. The reason I'm giving this a bit of a pass is because in science we need things that are falsifiable. The burden of proof should be on those believing in God. But such a belief is not falsifiable. You can't prove or disprove God. If they aren't pushy, they're okay with admitting that, and don't make a big deal out of it then I don't really care. That's just being a decent person. But that's a very different thing than not believing in things we have strong physical evidence for, strong mathematical theories, and a long record of making counter factual predictions. The great thing about science is it makes predictions. Climate science has been making pretty good ones since the 80's. Every prediction comes with error bounds. Those are tightening but the climate today matches those predictions within error. That's falsifiable

somenameforme 1y ago

I think one of the most important 'social values' for science to thrive is a culture with a freedom to disagree on essentially anything. In most of every era where there was rapid scientific progress from the Greeks to the Islamic Golden Age to the Renaissance and beyond, there was also rich, and often times rather virulent, disagreements over even the most sacred of things. Some of those disagreements were well founded, some were... not. It's only in the eras where disagreement becomes taboo that science starts to slow to a crawl and in many cases essentially die. Disagreeing with some consensus is not "anti-science". The term doesn't even make any sense, which is because it's a political and not a scientific term. I mean imagine if we claimed everybody who happens to believe MOND is more likely than WIMPs as an explanation for dark matter, to be "anti-science". It's just absolutely stupid. Yet we do exactly that on other topics where suddenly you must agree with the consensus or you're just "anti-science"? I mean again, it makes no sense at all.

catlifeonmars 1y ago
I don’t think that’s quite right. Disagreement for the sake of disagreement is not particularly meaningful. The basis for science is iteration on the scientific method. Which is to say: observe -> hypothesize -> falsify. Anti science means to make claims that have no basis in that process or to categorically reject the body of work that was based on that process.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- somenameforme 1y ago
  People disagree because they hold a different opinion. In many eras publicly expressing differing opinions, let alone publicly challenging established ones, becomes difficult for various reasons - cultural, political, social, even economic. And I think this is, in general, the natural state of society. When people think something is right, changing their mind is often not realistically possible. And this includes even the greatest of scientists. For instance none other than Einstein rejected a probabilistic interpretation of quantum physics, the Copenhagen Interpretation, all the way to his death. Many of his most famous quotes like 'God does not play dice with the universe.' or 'Spooky action at a distance.' were essentially sardonic mocking of such an interpretation, the exact one that we hold as the standard today. It was none other than Max Planck that remarked, 'Science advances one funeral at a time' [1], precisely because of this issue. And so freedom to express, debate, and have 'wrong ideas' in the public mindshare is quite critical, because it may very well be that those wrong ideas are simply the standard of truth tomorrow. But most societies naturally turn against this, because they believe they already know the truth, and fear the possibility of society being misled away from that truth. And so it's quite natural to try to clamp down, implicitly or explicitly, on public dissenting views, especially if they start to gain traction. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck's_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck's_principle