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I think we should relax about the idea that most people post inaccurate facts when they're cheering science. What they're doing is cheering for the idea of sci

I think we should relax about the idea that most people post inaccurate facts when they're cheering science. What they're doing is cheering for the idea of science. It's similar to people cheering at a basketball game. They're not basketball players, so most of what they have to say about the topic is going to be wrong. But they're still rooting for you, and this is a good and powerful thing.

aaron695 13y ago
I think the problem is within the supposed science field sudo science is getting more traction. People who have done science degrees are coming out and still believing in forms of magic like organic, chiropractics, chemical free, anthropomorphizing animals etc. It's a fine line, should we appease the masses and try and get more scientists or try and at least get the supposed scientists practising and believing in actual science.
jacoblyles 13y ago
>this is a good and powerful thing. ... until they have a gross misunderstanding of an issue relevant to public policy and spread that misunderstanding to others. There is no "good ignorance".
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- iamdave 13y ago
  >There is no "good ignorance". This can't be stated enough; (the following is anecdotal) the amount of blatantly incorrect information being spread through the use of what I dub 'feel good infographics' across the internet is astonishing. The viewer looks at something, feels good about what they've read and then shares it because it passed their own personal sentiment analysis. It's kind of frightening because it sets the stage for all sorts of astroturfing and conditioning to spread; if anything we should look at the Boston Bomber/Reddit incident as evidence of this feel good propaganda. People were so eager to attach to the notion that they had 'caught the bastard' only for the truth to come out later that they had completely fingered the wrong guy.
- janardanyri 13y ago
  We're all ignorant of the vast majority of facts relevant to almost anything. Comprehension is expensive and scarce. That being the case, simple extensions of good faith count for a lot.
  - potatolicious 13y ago
    These aren't simple extensions of good faith though - that would be more like wearing a pin "I believe in science!", which is a-ok. The problem arises when people share untrue information out of the notion that they're spreading science. Comprehension is indeed expensive and scarce, which means recognizing the borders of your own knowledge and the start of your own ignorance is extremely important. Pseudoscientific drivel has no place anywhere.
    - vacri 13y ago
      It reminds me of the criticisms of Mythbusters. They do bad science a lot of the time, with shoddy understandings of underlying mechanisms. It's fair to criticise them as bad science for this. But on the other hand, they very much promote the idea of "think of something, suggest what might happen if you do it, then do it and see what you find (, and then publish it)". So while they may not do good science themselves, they do promote the fundamental ideals of science, and are open to having their suggestions found wrong. Whereas the facebook page does nothing like this at all - it's just funny pictures with a theme. It doesn't encourage any way of thinking or promote figuring out the world.
      - TeMPOraL 13y ago
        Your point was very nicely expressed in this xkcd: http://xkcd.com/397/ http://xkcd.com/397/.
  - jckt 13y ago
    Ignorance is fine -- it is an unfortunate fact that nobody can learn it all. But to think that one is "engaging" in science -- I suppose most fans of the Page think they're somehow engaging in it (anecdotal) -- is, well, wrong. As much as I'd like it to be true, looking at a bunch of .gifs about quantum mechanics and astrophysics plastered with white majuscules does little for one's understanding of science. In other words, IFLS is to the scientific community as r/atheism is to the religious-sceptics community (not the best analogy...).
- qu4z-2 13y ago
  I agree. It seems like supporting science through ignorance is missing the point.
saraid216 13y ago
> I think we should relax about the idea that most people post inaccurate facts when they're cheering science. The absolute only good thing about this is that it fights fire with fire: that is, it uses tribalism to fight tribalism. But that's all it is. Atheistic religiosity is still religiosity, and it's a problem whether or not magical woo is involved. It's the same kind of thing when people think that calling out a fallacy is some kind of argumentative coup d'etat. Or let's bring this back to software and business. How exactly do you feel when your sales team drastically overpromises your engineering capabilities? That's how I feel.
- illuminate 13y ago
  "Atheistic religiosity is still religiosity" A lack of belief in God is not a belief in a God. Your example is ignorant.
  - omegant 13y ago
    Are you so sure? A person that is conditioned to follow an idea will behave in a conditioned way, I doesn't matter the topic. When you are conditioned to beleave and cheer a "scientific" fact, it is improbable that you'll allow new facts to replace your beleave. You have made a new religion wit a new "Idol".
    - scotty79 13y ago
      What if you are conditioned to believe and cheer replacing the facts you believed in with new ones that have no evidence against them and many clues for them? Can reason an scientific method itself be an Idol? And if you do not cherish those things do you think it's better since you are truly not a believer in anything? Even the method that verifiebly gives humanity models of predictive utility that gave us almost all we enjoy today?
    - illuminate 13y ago
      "When you are conditioned to beleave and cheer a "scientific" fact, it is improbable that you'll allow new facts to replace your beleave. You have made a new religion wit a new "Idol"." Religion is the belief in an absence of evidence. Science is the whole of objective reality. You don't seem to understand what "science" and "religion" actually mean, but you really don't like persons who don't believe in anything, so you assign bizarrely negative qualifiers for someone who knows things. No one on earth worships "SCIENCE". It's a tool we use daily, whether you understand why things work or not.
statictype 13y ago
I think we should relax about the idea that most people post inaccurate facts when they're cheering science. Seems to me that a lot of the point of 'cheering science' is lost when you're posting inaccurate facts. Can you even call it science any more?
drakaal 13y ago
Oh, do the cheerleader mine the data of the audience, and use it to create spam? If the cheerleaders were sleeping with the fans and spreading venereal disease your analogy would be nearly perfect.
illuminate 13y ago
"I think we should relax about the idea that most people post inaccurate facts when they're cheering science. What they're doing is cheering for the idea of science." This is how What the Bleep, Dr. Oz, and all manner of pseudoscience subverts actual science. Fairweather friends like that make it more difficult because they're repeating a meme or sort of cargo cult understanding of how reality works.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

aaron695 13y ago

I think the problem is within the supposed science field sudo science is getting more traction. People who have done science degrees are coming out and still believing in forms of magic like organic, chiropractics, chemical free, anthropomorphizing animals etc. It's a fine line, should we appease the masses and try and get more scientists or try and at least get the supposed scientists practising and believing in actual science.

jacoblyles 13y ago

>this is a good and powerful thing. ... until they have a gross misunderstanding of an issue relevant to public policy and spread that misunderstanding to others. There is no "good ignorance".

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
iamdave 13y ago
>There is no "good ignorance". This can't be stated enough; (the following is anecdotal) the amount of blatantly incorrect information being spread through the use of what I dub 'feel good infographics' across the internet is astonishing. The viewer looks at something, feels good about what they've read and then shares it because it passed their own personal sentiment analysis. It's kind of frightening because it sets the stage for all sorts of astroturfing and conditioning to spread; if anything we should look at the Boston Bomber/Reddit incident as evidence of this feel good propaganda. People were so eager to attach to the notion that they had 'caught the bastard' only for the truth to come out later that they had completely fingered the wrong guy.
janardanyri 13y ago
We're all ignorant of the vast majority of facts relevant to almost anything. Comprehension is expensive and scarce. That being the case, simple extensions of good faith count for a lot.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  These aren't simple extensions of good faith though - that would be more like wearing a pin "I believe in science!", which is a-ok. The problem arises when people share untrue information out of the notion that they're spreading science. Comprehension is indeed expensive and scarce, which means recognizing the borders of your own knowledge and the start of your own ignorance is extremely important. Pseudoscientific drivel has no place anywhere.
  - vacri 13y ago
    It reminds me of the criticisms of Mythbusters. They do bad science a lot of the time, with shoddy understandings of underlying mechanisms. It's fair to criticise them as bad science for this. But on the other hand, they very much promote the idea of "think of something, suggest what might happen if you do it, then do it and see what you find (, and then publish it)". So while they may not do good science themselves, they do promote the fundamental ideals of science, and are open to having their suggestions found wrong. Whereas the facebook page does nothing like this at all - it's just funny pictures with a theme. It doesn't encourage any way of thinking or promote figuring out the world.
    - TeMPOraL 13y ago
      Your point was very nicely expressed in this xkcd: http://xkcd.com/397/ http://xkcd.com/397/.
- jckt 13y ago
  Ignorance is fine -- it is an unfortunate fact that nobody can learn it all. But to think that one is "engaging" in science -- I suppose most fans of the Page think they're somehow engaging in it (anecdotal) -- is, well, wrong. As much as I'd like it to be true, looking at a bunch of .gifs about quantum mechanics and astrophysics plastered with white majuscules does little for one's understanding of science. In other words, IFLS is to the scientific community as r/atheism is to the religious-sceptics community (not the best analogy...).
qu4z-2 13y ago
I agree. It seems like supporting science through ignorance is missing the point.

saraid216 13y ago

> I think we should relax about the idea that most people post inaccurate facts when they're cheering science. The absolute only good thing about this is that it fights fire with fire: that is, it uses tribalism to fight tribalism. But that's all it is. Atheistic religiosity is still religiosity, and it's a problem whether or not magical woo is involved. It's the same kind of thing when people think that calling out a fallacy is some kind of argumentative coup d'etat. Or let's bring this back to software and business. How exactly do you feel when your sales team drastically overpromises your engineering capabilities? That's how I feel.

illuminate 13y ago
"Atheistic religiosity is still religiosity" A lack of belief in God is not a belief in a God. Your example is ignorant.
- omegant 13y ago
  Are you so sure? A person that is conditioned to follow an idea will behave in a conditioned way, I doesn't matter the topic. When you are conditioned to beleave and cheer a "scientific" fact, it is improbable that you'll allow new facts to replace your beleave. You have made a new religion wit a new "Idol".
  - scotty79 13y ago
    What if you are conditioned to believe and cheer replacing the facts you believed in with new ones that have no evidence against them and many clues for them? Can reason an scientific method itself be an Idol? And if you do not cherish those things do you think it's better since you are truly not a believer in anything? Even the method that verifiebly gives humanity models of predictive utility that gave us almost all we enjoy today?
  - illuminate 13y ago
    "When you are conditioned to beleave and cheer a "scientific" fact, it is improbable that you'll allow new facts to replace your beleave. You have made a new religion wit a new "Idol"." Religion is the belief in an absence of evidence. Science is the whole of objective reality. You don't seem to understand what "science" and "religion" actually mean, but you really don't like persons who don't believe in anything, so you assign bizarrely negative qualifiers for someone who knows things. No one on earth worships "SCIENCE". It's a tool we use daily, whether you understand why things work or not.

statictype 13y ago

I think we should relax about the idea that most people post inaccurate facts when they're cheering science. Seems to me that a lot of the point of 'cheering science' is lost when you're posting inaccurate facts. Can you even call it science any more?

drakaal 13y ago

Oh, do the cheerleader mine the data of the audience, and use it to create spam? If the cheerleaders were sleeping with the fans and spreading venereal disease your analogy would be nearly perfect.

illuminate 13y ago

"I think we should relax about the idea that most people post inaccurate facts when they're cheering science. What they're doing is cheering for the idea of science." This is how What the Bleep, Dr. Oz, and all manner of pseudoscience subverts actual science. Fairweather friends like that make it more difficult because they're repeating a meme or sort of cargo cult understanding of how reality works.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]