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This is what happens when people argue past each other on "Trust the science". Science is good, but it's mediated via corruptible humans.

by gadders 7mo ago

MarkusQ 7mo ago
Also, "science" isn't some sort of dogma that you should trust, it's a process you should follow. "Trust the science" is anathema to the process. If anything, the chant should be "Doubt the science! Give it your best shot, refute it with data, with logic, provide a better explanation!"
- bonoboTP 7mo ago
  Realistically, the vast majority of people will not have a real chance to "refute" or even evaluate scientific claims. Maybe given a lot of time and foundational work to learn the field, some percentage of people can usefully think about them, but the vast majority can't. A lot of people are functional illiterates. They will pick based on trust and gut feelings either way. For example, when deciding whether to give your kids certain vaccines or not, you really can't expect that new parents will read the primary literature and try to refute or confirm the conclusions based on the numbers and will trace through the citations and so on... Any of those claims will also have some online account on social media refuting it with equally scientifically sounding words. In the end it will come down to heuristics and your model of how the world works, which set of people operate with what kind of intention. Like maybe you know people working in the field who you trust and hear from them that generally this sort of stuff can be trusted. Or maybe you had some bad experiences getting screwed by "the establishment" (maybe even unrelated to medicine) and now you lump all this together and distrust them.
  - MarkusQ 7mo ago
    Which is why we need people "doing science" to also focus on getting rid of bad ideas rather than just coming up with more. The present incentive structure is such that we reward people for coming up with shocking new ideas even if they are obviously rubbish and don't do enough to reward the ones who put in the effort to debunking existing bad ideas. Coming up with ideas is the easy part of science, but most new ideas are wrong. Getting rid of the ones that aren't actually correct is hard, yet we shower praise on people doing the easy part and ignore the ones doing the hard part.

This is what happens when people argue past each other on "Trust the science". Science is good, but it's mediated via corruptible humans.

by gadders 7mo ago

This is what happens when people argue past each other on "Trust the science". Science is good, but it's mediated via corruptible humans.

MarkusQ 7mo ago

Also, "science" isn't some sort of dogma that you should trust, it's a process you should follow. "Trust the science" is anathema to the process. If anything, the chant should be "Doubt the science! Give it your best shot, refute it with data, with logic, provide a better explanation!"

bonoboTP 7mo ago
Realistically, the vast majority of people will not have a real chance to "refute" or even evaluate scientific claims. Maybe given a lot of time and foundational work to learn the field, some percentage of people can usefully think about them, but the vast majority can't. A lot of people are functional illiterates. They will pick based on trust and gut feelings either way. For example, when deciding whether to give your kids certain vaccines or not, you really can't expect that new parents will read the primary literature and try to refute or confirm the conclusions based on the numbers and will trace through the citations and so on... Any of those claims will also have some online account on social media refuting it with equally scientifically sounding words. In the end it will come down to heuristics and your model of how the world works, which set of people operate with what kind of intention. Like maybe you know people working in the field who you trust and hear from them that generally this sort of stuff can be trusted. Or maybe you had some bad experiences getting screwed by "the establishment" (maybe even unrelated to medicine) and now you lump all this together and distrust them.
- MarkusQ 7mo ago
  Which is why we need people "doing science" to also focus on getting rid of bad ideas rather than just coming up with more. The present incentive structure is such that we reward people for coming up with shocking new ideas even if they are obviously rubbish and don't do enough to reward the ones who put in the effort to debunking existing bad ideas. Coming up with ideas is the easy part of science, but most new ideas are wrong. Getting rid of the ones that aren't actually correct is hard, yet we shower praise on people doing the easy part and ignore the ones doing the hard part.