
Why science is so hard to believe - frostmatthew
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-science-is-so-hard-to-believe/2015/02/12/2ff8f064-b0a0-11e4-886b-c22184f27c35_story.html
======
TeMPOraL
I believe the common and most important reason behind all recent anti-science
movements is something that is also behind many other social and political
sentiments as well as conspiracy theories - namely, degradation of public's
trust in authorities. People don't trust their government, they don't trust
corporations, and they don't trust scientist. And I increasingly believe they
have perfectly good reasons for that.

You see, governments lie and cheat all the time. Companies at every scale -
from startups to mom and pop shops to LLCs to corporations keep abusing the
social contract for their own short-term gains. Newspapers report science in
ridiculous ways, journalist keep inventing their own lies to spice up the
story. It's hard to know who to trust anymore. And so people revert to
trusting plausible sounding narratives and charismatic individuals.

This problem is going to hit us hard in the nearby future. I fear this is an
existential threat for western civilization. That's also the reason why lying
to people is one of the biggest sins in my book. As the quote goes, "Promoting
less than maximally accurate beliefs is an act of sabotage. Don't do it to
anyone unless you'd also slash their tires." I think it's actually
underrepresenting the damage lies cause to society.

People nowdays see the failure of trust and strive to design systems that
don't depend on trusting its actors at all. I'm not sure it's a good
direction. As we increasingly don't expect trustworthiness from other people,
we're digging ourselves deeper into the hole.

So yes, anti-vaxxers, anti-GMOs, anti-nuclear, et al. are wrong. Stupidly
wrong. But it's hard for me to blame them. They've been lied to so many times
that it's hard for them to trust authorities anymore.

EDIT: to clarify, in the last paragraph I meant that those people simply
arrived to wrong (or dangerously wrong) conclusions, _not_ that they
themselves are stupid.

~~~
givan
> So yes, anti-vaxxers, anti-GMOs, anti-nuclear, et al. are wrong. Stupidly
> wrong.

Why is that? Another reason people lost trust is the arrogance of some
scientist that seem to ignore the complexity of their subjects and don't see
the limits of their research.

Also people like you that believe that everything that has gone trough a
scientific study must be true, science can also get it wrong sometimes, don't
stop thinking and questioning.

~~~
ewzimm
Even scientists have been increasingly admitting that confirmation bias is
strong. Another problem is funding. If all research was funded by non-profit
public interest groups, there might be more trust, but when you're talking
about GMO research, for example, a lot of it is done by industry for industry.
I'm not saying that all GMOs are bad, but it's also impossible to make a
blanket statement that all GMOs are good. Obviously that's not the case.

A GMO could be created to be extremely dangerous, just like a prescription
medicine could and has been created which is extremely dangerous. The problem
is that we're asked to trust people whose immediate interests do not always
align with ours. We've seen prescriptions forced through with inadequate
testing, so there's no reason to believe that every GMO is going to be
adequately tested. The current atmosphere of hostility seems to be helping
that testing happen.

The base problem is that we have a society of people whose interests are
aligned against each other and a system meant to encourage that kind of
competition.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _The base problem is that we have a society of people whose interests are
> aligned against each other and a system meant to encourage that kind of
> competition._

This. This might be one of the roots of the lack of trust. And given that
people get abused by others all the time, it's really hard for me to blame
people mistrusting research done by companies - especially if you don't have
even basic understanding of the scientific issues involved, which most people
don't have - partially thanks to broken education system, and partially
because well, why should they? Not everyone will love science, those who don't
should be able to just trust those of us who do. But now they can't.

------
protomyth
I thought the problem was asbestos, crappy study reporting, and hypocrites or
appearance of hypocrisy.

Asbestos was good and now is very, very bad (well, in uncontrolled places). I
cannot help but think this lead a fair number of people to question what is
really safe. It seemed quite a lot of truths suddenly became dangerous at
about the same time. That is just learning, but it felt like a turing point.
Heck, a lot of people learned that mistakes cost a fair amount of cash to fix.
If you want a science version look at the original polio vaccine. It did give
quite a few people polio, but it has had an amazing record since. Flu shots
are extremely effective when they guess correctly and a pain (37% this year)
when they don't, but they still save lives for a very low risk.

Look at eggs. Are they good for you or bad for you? Red wine? People have been
conditioned to think studies are about as reliable as midnight infomercials,
and neither of these questions fit in the sound bite length answer that is
generally given to science on news programs.

Hypocrisy is painful. The average person knows when someone has a "better than
them" attitude, and if you are condescending they will ignore you. As an
example, if you're flying around on a G5 and telling the general public they
will have to downgrade their lifestyle, then the general public won't listen
to you.

Its an interesting cycle and really nothing new. I wish the media would quit
blaming the "common people" and start looking at how it presents things.
People loose trust in authority when authority starts acting like charlatans.
They spend every news cast scaring the hell out of people when the statistics
say they shouldn't. That bleeds into government and now we arrest people of
letting 12 year olds walk home from school. Why would people believe anything?

tldr: if you are constantly told everything is broken and dangerous, expect
people to not care anymore or be afraid of everything.

~~~
Alex3917
> [flu vaccines] still save lives for a very low risk.

AFAIK that's not actually been proven. It's clear that someone who got the flu
vaccine this year is less likely to die than someone who didn't, all else
being equal. But flu shots only confer partial immunity for 6 months or so,
whereas getting the real flu confers partial immunity for decades. At least
the last time I looked, I wasn't able to find any convincing evidence that
someone getting the flu vaccine every year from birth would be in a better
place at age 70 than someone who, say, just got the actual flu every year
until they started getting the vaccine at age 70 or whatever. Some relevant
research/articles:

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870374/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870374/)

[http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/08/28/study_raises_re...](http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/08/28/study_raises_red_flag_for_universal_flu_vaccine.html)

[http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/11/study-
add...](http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/11/study-adds-more-
data-effects-consecutive-year-flu-shots)

~~~
protomyth
> [flu vaccines] still save lives for a very low risk.

"AFAIK that's not actually been proven. It's clear that someone who got the
flu vaccine this year is less likely to die than someone who didn't, all else
being equal."

Ok, that first sentence says I'm wrong and the second sentence seems to say my
statement is correct. I am confused.

"But flu shots only confer partial immunity for 6 months or so, whereas
getting the real flu confers partial immunity for decades. At least the last
time I looked, I wasn't able to find any convincing evidence that someone
getting the flu vaccine every year from birth would be in a better place at
age 70 than someone who, say, just got the actual flu every year until they
started getting the vaccine at age 70 or whatever. Some relevant
research/articles:"

and then three study links with the first one being a study with the line
"Contrary to immunity elicited by influenza vaccination, naturally acquired
immunity can provide long-lasting protection against subsequent infection by
the same viral subtype [22, 23]. For example, when the A(H1N1) virus re-
emerged in 1977 after 20 years, people who had been exposed to the virus
before 1957 were much less susceptible to infection than those born after 1957
[24]. This long-term protection against influenza viruses of the same type or
subtype may be partly due to selection of cross-reactive CTL targeting
epitopes on a wide variety of internal proteins [25–27]." \- so supporting
your statement - sort of

the second an article with no links to any studies from a paper I don't know
the reputation.

and the the third having the quote "Our results support the recommendation for
annual vaccination, given current vaccine options, as those unvaccinated in
the current year appear to be at greater risk when considering both VE and
serologic evidence."

So, I have no idea other than I'm just going to keep getting my shot because
the years I don't, I get really sick and its not worth the long term gain. I
suppose an anti-vaxxer would be screaming "See, See!!!!". I'm not sure I could
state they are wrong, either. :(

~~~
Alex3917
> I have no idea other than I'm just going to keep getting my shot because the
> years I don't, I get really sick and its not worth the long term gain.

What makes you think it's not worth the longterm gain? It obviously depends on
your utility function, but for most people presumably being sick for a week
now is less bad than being so sick that you die 10 years from now. I'm not
saying that's necessarily what it comes down to, because the evidence isn't at
all clear to me. But I do think that the pro-vaxxers have completely 100%
failed to make their case here, so I don't understand why we constantly have
these articles with them browbeating others and calling them ignorant when
they themselves apparently have no idea about the safety/efficacy of the
vaccines that they're calling others stupid and irresponsible for not getting.

------
pdonis
A major factor missing from the article is that scientists, when they
translate their work into layperson's terms, often don't take care to
distinguish between different levels of confidence in their conclusions.
Scientific theories that are nailed down by massive experimental data and a
track record of predictions accurate to many decimal places are talked about
the same way, by scientists, as theories that are still being developed and
refined and don't have anywhere near the same level of confidence. Even in a
single field (e.g., physics), scientists often aren't careful to distinguish
the solid base from speculative models at the frontiers (e.g., the Standard
Model of particle physics vs. string theory, or the standard hot Big Bang
model of cosmology from inflation and various speculations about what came
before inflation). This means that, once a lay person sees that any scientific
conclusion turned out to be wrong, which is going to happen because science is
not perfect, they think it means Science is wrong, period--because the
scientists themselves painted the picture that way.

~~~
goalieca
When you're discussing the edge of theory in physics, you can make some pretty
neat TV shows and maybe get some kids interested in science. I loved watching
those crazy speculative documentaries about the universe and all that.

However, when you're discussing the edge of science in a health or socio-
economic field, people "hear about studies" all the time in the news. Many are
conflicting. Some things go on and live their own lives. Some things lend
themselves to a certain ideological thinking and despite being proven wrong
later on, go on to live in very awful ways. Eg: vaccines scares.

~~~
jghn
The real problem with "hear about studies" is that by the time things filter
down to the average person the stories are completely watered down and spun to
make some sensational headline.

Even without the simple headline grabbing, all nuance is lost, which is the
cause of a lot of the "XYZ is good!" ... "No, XYZ is bad!" confusion - the
reality is that "XYZ is good under these experimental conditions, for some
definition of good" and vice versa.

------
calinet6
It's quite simple: people don't understand science, and science doesn't
understand people.

Several generations of highly specialized education tend to do that.

We need more poets who are scientists, more scientists who are poets. We need
a level of breadth that has not yet been seen except in a few diamonds in the
rough. These ties between our humanity and our world are more important than
we realize.

In practice, this means a better and more widespread liberal arts education—a
program that you may not realize is valuable until ten years after graduation,
and therefore must be a wisdom passed down to our children and embraced as a
society. It needs to be a program that teaches the incredible depth of
science, and the humanity to deal with the complex consequences, which are
necessarily bigger than our perspective.

Until this shift occurs, we will continue to encounter this divergence of
understanding. It's a long bet, but we need it more than ever.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>In practice, this means a better and more widespread liberal arts education

Or, instead of making the science majors spend more of our _very_ scarce time
on humanities courses, couldn't you just make the humanities majors spend more
of their less-scarce time on science and math courses?

Why is it that scientists are continually called on to "remain in touch" with
"humanity" ( _as if we scientists are not human!_ ) and "liberal arts" ( _as
if anyone in our work-or-die society is free in the old Greco-Roman sense!_ ),
but nobody taking their education outside the sciences is called upon to
display the kind of _basic_ scientific literacy shown by passing intro-level
courses in calculus, statistics, and research methods?

~~~
calinet6
You'll understand in ten years. I don't mean to blow you off and be all "wise"
and crap, I really, truly mean it.

With that said, I absolutely, completely agree that the humanities majors need
more than basic scientific literacy. That's 50% of the problem.

But I challenge you to think deeply about why the other 50% of the problem
might lie with how scientists understand the humanities, because I really
strongly believe that.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>You'll understand in ten years.

Really? I have some extracurricular education in the humanities, actually,
with particular focus on politics and the related pieces of philosophy. It's
also worth mentioning that I am well away from my own undergrad years.

The problem is not that I find humanities subjects insubstantial from far-
away, but that I find them insubstantial from _close up_.

Whereas I find myself wishing _all the time_ that I had, in previous years,
taken more advantage of opportunities to learn science and math.

>I don't mean to blow you off and be all "wise" and crap, I really, truly mean
it.

Then I think we should have a much more detailed conversation about what you
mean, because you have certainly managed to come off that way.

>With that said, I absolutely, completely agree that the humanities majors
need more than basic scientific literacy. That's 50% of the problem.

No. They don't even _have_ basic scientific literacy to start with. To quote
the common material on this matter:

>A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the
standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have
with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of
scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how
many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was
cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is the scientific
equivalent of: "Have you read a work of Shakespeare’s?"

>I now believe that if I had asked an even simpler question — such as, "What
do you mean by mass, or acceleration", which is the scientific equivalent of
saying, "Can you read?" — not more than one in ten of the highly educated
would have felt that I was speaking the same language. So the great edifice of
modern physics goes up, and the majority of the cleverest people in the
western world have about as much insight into it as their neolithic ancestors
would have had.

I would _hope_ that more than 10% of humanities experts can today answer such
basic questions as "What is acceleration?" (the second derivative of
position/displacement) or "Explain the significance of the Second Law of
Thermodynamics to human life" (humans must eat food to survive, and will
eventually die). Even if the rate is more like 95%, we are again speaking of
scientific questions on the level of "Have you read a classic?" and "Can you
read at all?". In fact, I strongly doubt that most "humanists" can answer the
question about acceleration, since they mostly never studied any calculus --
it would have dragged down their freshman-year GPA and wasn't required anyway.

Meanwhile, we have not gotten up to the level of talking about interesting
hobby material (rocketry or electronics or programming), nor to the level
where the "humanists" ( _or even most scientists_ ) can competently understand
scientific concepts essential to public life, such as the Greenhouse Effect,
cognitive bias, or p-values.

By the standards of a modern, scientific civilization, the classical humanist
is a developmentally disabled child who continues to insist, against all
evidence, that he is the jewel of intellectuals and has an exclusive right to
make all of society's important choices.

>But I challenge you to think deeply about why the other 50% of the problem
might lie with how scientists understand the humanities, because I really
strongly believe that.

If you believe it strongly, please provide evidence. I'm of course open to
convincing evidence, but I strongly believe the opposite: the problem is _not_
evenly split, it lies almost entirely in the way people holding society's
ethical and political reigns disdain and disregard the _mere facts_ uncovered
by science and mathematics in favor of their ever-more-sophisticated
"humanistic" intuitions.

~~~
calinet6
You're absolutely right, I was being an arrogant prick by saying that, and I
regret it. I've gotta stop doing that. Apologies. I only offer advice,
especially for young people which I mistakenly assumed, and I didn't mean it
arrogantly. I highly recommend reading one book: "The Immense Journey" by
Loren Eiseley.

I completely agree that the problem of the lack of respect nor understanding
of science is at an extreme, and it is an immense problem. You're absolutely
right.

But the way to attack it is systemically, from both sides. What we are
experiencing is a societal divide, and it is not one sided, as unbalanced as
it seems. It's highly complex. Science has lost the ability to appeal to
humanity in such a way as to be trustworthy in and of itself. For that, I do
believe science as an institution (scientists, leaders, new institutions not
yet imagined) requires a deep understanding of humanity and the ability to
connect with it at a core level. This will be difficult.

There are some things for which evidence will never be enough. If you don't
understand that, well—there's direct evidence for the disconnect between
science and the humanities. When the scientific world collectively understands
that, then, I believe, we will no longer have an issue with how society
relates to science. It will have become clear and obvious.

Blaming the individuals for their knowledge will never solve anything. The
right question is _not_ what people do not know; but _why_ do they not know?
And how do we make it irresistible to know and understand and pursue science?
How do we integrate scientific understanding into our very core? That is the
question.

------
vxxzy
Can Anyone shed some light to debunk this:
[http://fluoridealert.org/articles/50-reasons/](http://fluoridealert.org/articles/50-reasons/)

The argument is compelling, but I am not one who knows either way.

What studies show Fluoridated water's benefit?

~~~
keslag
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC27492/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC27492/)

Just like with creationism, vaccinations, the environment, and fluoride; if
you polish the bullshit enough, people will follow.

~~~
gwern
I think my main take-away from the forest plots in that paper (and the
discussion of the specific studies) is that the evidence for even the dental
benefits is really wretched. Not a single randomized trial, and the
heterogeneity is insanely high.

(Can you imagine proposing fluoridation of everyone's drinking water these
days based on evidence like that? If fluoride were being proposed to the FDA
as a drug, it wouldn't even make it to Phase III trials...)

~~~
gwern
> the heterogeneity is insanely high.

To expand on this: the heterogeneity is so high that they don't (as meta-
analysis guidelines say you should) report the figures. This is why in the
figures, you see tight confidence intervals around zero, but also equally-
tight confidence intervals many effect-size units away. That's an alarm bell
for trying to draw any sort of meaningful conclusion: it means there are so
many variables at play that you have no idea whether the net should be zero or
big. (Also a concern given the observation that many countries have seen
dental problems fall considerably as they developed, which is a big confound.)

------
jostmey
The word science gets overused, diluting what truly is science. This quote
from the article says it best:

"Science is not a body of facts," ... “Science is a method for deciding
whether what we choose to believe has a basis in the laws of nature or not.”

~~~
calinet6
The concept of science is a bit complex, and therefore not easily understood
in a sound bite.

It is one of those things that requires a level of education beyond a certain
level (and by this I don't mean grade level, but a level of ability and
understanding and especially respect).

Two curves are meeting: one, indicating the level of scientific understanding
necessary to function highly in the new world we live in, increasing rapidly
over time—and the other, showing true scientific literacy, the comfort with
doubt and the flexibility of the mind to new information, rapidly declining.

We are at a crossroads, and the solution is a renewal of a _holistic_ liberal
arts and science education—to instill not only a complete understanding of and
respect for science, but also the humanity necessary to wield the complexity
of the world.

------
Alex3917
There are surveys showing that atheists often know more about the beliefs of
various religions than the actual adherents of these religions. No doubt this
is true for science as well... It's hard for me to believe that anyone who
doesn't doubt science actually knows all that much about science, its history,
its epistemology, its current issues, etc.

I think it's funny that science evangelists complain about all the anti-
science folks in society, and they're completely unable to produce
intellectually honest defenses of actual praxis. All these sorts of articles
ever do is point to the same set of success stories or examples of
irrationality among 'non-believers', as if that's some sort of intellectually
coherent argument. It's ridiculous that these folks won't do an actual cost-
benefit analysis of science in practice, presumably because they know the
results won't be favorable them, but then browbeat people for not 'converting'
based on their theory of science as it would be practiced in some sort of
utopia. It's like creationism, but even more stupid.

Don't get me wrong, I spend an enormous amount of time reading scientific
research and my knowledge of that is probably my greatest secret weapon as a
founder, but at the same time the sort of pro-science evangelism I see on the
Internet makes me weep for the future of society.

------
kingkawn
I don't think it is fair to judge people's disbelief of science as a
standalone position. Most people (in the United States at least) receive a
poor education across all subjects, and the experience of that learning is
more akin to imprisonment than exploration. They know many authorities, from
police to teachers and bosses, who are flawed people exercising their powers
poorly.

In that context how is it possible to convince someone that science is not
also as corrupt as every other institution they've encountered. If my entire
experience of education is that it is unfair and run by sadists, then the only
people who will succeed in it are those who are willing to subject themselves
to what they are told. Their perspective is built into their environment.

These skeptics and deniers can't be convinced, but not because they are
stupid. The entirety of their lives lead to the subjectively rational
conclusion that everything they are told to do will keep them miserable so
they believe and do none of it.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Exactly. When you know enough science (which will likely require you to be
biased towards it, as otherwise the education system will make sure you don't
learn any of it) things start to increasingly fall into place. You'll see that
the whole body of things you know is internally consistent. It has to be,
because the reality itself is.

So as you learn more and more facts and see how interwoven they are you're
able to evaluate further information without having to base on trust alone.
If, say, vaccines were harmful or synthetically produced compounds were
somewhat "toxic" compared to the same compounds found in normal food, you'd
have to literally throw half of your scientific knowledge away. So you can
easily determine that those claims are bullshit. But that requires knowing
relatively lot of stuff, which majority of people do not. They have to rely on
trusting authorities - which keep lying all the time. So no surprise here that
people just don't believe science or government and are drawn towards various
pseudoscientific nonsense that is presented as contrarian and promoted by
charismatic individuals.

~~~
kingkawn
What I meant to say then is that the problem is not pseudoscientific nonsense
but the nonsense done by authority figures in general.

------
abruzzi
One offhand sentence in the article articulates my biggest fear: specifically
about scientists getting involved in advocacy. I fear this would create a
dynamic where the science is written off because it is too associated with a
cause of the left or right. That has already happened with some issues like
AGW. My pet theory why the right is so dead set against believing scientific
consensus on AGW? Because the first most people heard about AGW was from Al
Gore, so the battle lines were drawn at that moment. Now there is an
association that the climate scientists are fighting for the left, making them
easier to dismiss by partisans on the right.

I know staying out of the political battles is not going to solve all the
problems, but when science has an agenda, it becomes much easier to doubt the
results.

------
Retric
I think the real issue is people are given the results not the background
experiments.

Talk to an 10 year old about air resistance vs gravity and there probably
going to take what you say on faith. Show them a video of a brick and a
feather dropped in a vacuum and you words become more meaningful.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
There is an interesting journal called JOVE, journal of visualized
experiments, which does this. It has peer reviewed videos of experiments. But
this has the same problem that many other journals do, it is behind a big pay
wall.

------
rl3
The recent flood of generic science-cheerleading pieces such as this one
strike me as intellectually lazy.

Science is a good thing? _No shit._ Of course it is.

The level of polarization being applied in recent discourse on some of these
topics is disturbing.

This article in particular is a prime example. Several topics are listed, each
cast as black and white, and subsequently lumped together under the same
banner. If you have any reservations regarding any of the topics listed, no
matter how nuanced, you clearly must be anti-science.

Moreover, this intolerance doesn't seem to discourage the ignorant from
continuing to argue their uninformed opinions. On the contrary, it only
inflames them.

The few people who do have nuanced, well-researched opinions on these hot-
button topics are then shouted down and discouraged from participating. Why
risk career suicide or otherwise waste time arguing something when it's
completely fruitless anyways.

If I had to ascribe a dynamic to the phenomenon, it might look something like
this:

1\. Hot-button issue arises wherein the majority of the science agrees with
one position, but very specific legitimate issues persist.

2\. The uninformed latch on to the issue as a whole, and completely fail argue
in any sort of reasonable, nuanced manner.

3\. The media, usually spurred on by robust corporate messaging strategies,
decide to utterly destroy these people (rightfully so).

4\. The general public joins in to fight on behalf of Science™, because the
Neil deGrasse Tyson memes on Facebook really spoke to them at some basal
level.

5\. The uninformed become even more inflamed, and the crazies start coming out
of the woodwork.

6\. Any semblance of civil or reasoned discourse is completely gone at this
point. All that's left is a self-perpetuating cycle that fosters an
environment completely hostile to anyone wanting to raise legitimate concerns,
but it at least generates heaps of ad revenue.

A cynic might say the last point is by design, though I prefer to think it's
simply a dynamic inherent to modern, public forms of communication.

~~~
stolio
> 1\. Hot-button issue arises wherein the majority of the science agrees with
> one position, but very specific legitimate issues persist.

Yep. I suppose I'm "anti-GMO" in the sense that I view interspecies and intra-
species gene transfer (sometimes called horizontal gene transfer) to be
different animals. It's been a real let down when I've brought these things up
and I'm treated like I just insulted a recently deceased person.

Then I have to "pull my nerd card" to be treated like a human being again and
I'm left wondering why we treat people this way. A great part of science is we
get to use evidence and leave emotions out of it. If I'm speaking to somebody
with a biology background I'm happy to listen, question my beliefs and learn,
but dealing with the anti-anti-GMO crowd only makes me feel combative. I can
only imagine how people without a science background feel when they try to
join the discussion.

------
tokenadult
Perhaps one reason that science is not believed by more people in the general
public is that some public figures make a living by spreading misinformation
about science. The public is not just in a state of _tabula rasa_ neutrality
before scientists begin communicating with the public, but rather the public
has already been stuffed full of misconceptions by people who have something
to sell to buyers who are ignorant of science.

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-food-babes-war-on-
ch...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-food-babes-war-on-chemicals-
heats-up-again/)

------
MaastrichtTreat
Another problem is no storytelling. Podcasts like Radiolab do well
communicating science to the public because they have mastered telling a slow
& engaging story and discussing the implications while not jumping to them.

------
pera
It's not my intention to be pedantic here but you shouldn't "believe" in
science in the first place: science is not a religion that proclaims what is
true, at most you can "believe" that some scientific study have enough proofs
to demonstrate a theory, at some level. And even then, in my opinion, people
should be always open to analyze new hypothesis.

Also, imo this idea of a "consensus" in the "scientific community" is a bit
dangerous and could be easily misinterpreted by people who have no affinity to
science.

------
collyw
Scientists can be pretty damned arrogant (I work with them).

Science is very good at explaining the physical world, but try and point out
to them where that ends and you get a lot of dismissal (or down votes here on
HN). Point out how little progress has been made by science into the non-
physical world for example consciousness, and many of them are just as bad as
religious people in holding onto their belief systems despite a lack of
evidence.

Its like politicians. Maybe if they admitted what they don't know, the average
person would have a far greater respect for them.

~~~
SAI_Peregrinus
It's not even required to believe that the physical world ends, merely that
the complexity becomes intractable. There are many, many systems that exhibit
chaotic behavior (the weather is the most famous example) and thus can't be
well predicted by any science, despite being wholly physical. You don't need
to invoke any (possibly controversial) idea of a non-physical world to show
that science can't predict everything.

------
beefman
Science is a process, not a substance. It is the process by which it is
possible to believe things. So if you're having trouble believing something,
it's probably because you're not doing science.

Everything else is just politics (and probably wrong).

~~~
blowski
Isn't that tautology? You should only believe in good science. How do I know
what's good science? It's easy to believe in it.

It's far more troubling to believe the Earth goes round the Sun when my daily
experience of life suggests otherwise.

------
renox
Well there is also that: [http://blog.dilbert.com/post/109880240641/sciences-
biggest-f...](http://blog.dilbert.com/post/109880240641/sciences-biggest-fail)

------
known
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_quo_bias)

------
kaue
"doubters have declared war on the consensus of experts" – this is an argument
of authority ("experts"), which in turn is a fallacy, moreover, since when
science is a democracy ("consensus").

"In this bewildering world we have to decide what to believe and how to act on
that. In principle, that’s what science is for. “Science is not a body of
facts,” says geophysicist Marcia McNutt, who once headed the U.S. Geological
Survey and is now editor of Science, the prestigious journal. “Science is a
method for deciding whether what we choose to believe has a basis in the laws
of nature or not.”" – I do not even know from where to start. I could write a
book on the bullshit of this paragraph alone! Science is not a belief. "Facts"
are required as evidence. And Science is actually the human translation of the
laws of Nature, which could be right or wrong, but is done in a way using
arguments constructed within rationality. The way the paragraph is written it
is like it is describing a cult!

"Science, the prestigious journal": again, argument of authority.

"The students, even those who correctly marked “true,” were slower to answer
those questions" – of course they were!!! They were thinking!!! Which seems
nowadays is a rarity!!! And that is called conducting!!! The study and the
paragraph are being used to lead to what the author of the article wants!!!
The link with apes is self-evident because it seems we certainly have returned
to that stage!

Statistics: really one wants to lie on statistics – there is a planet, on this
planet lives two persons, they also have two chickens. One of them eats both
of the chickens, but the MEDIUM between them is still one chicken for each
person on that planet; nonetheless one of them is still HUNGRY! Nothing
against statistics, but we have to be careful in its use. Give any statistics
and tell me what you want that it is possible to make it "statistically"
happen.

"Of course, just because two things happened together doesn’t mean one caused
the other, and just because events are clustered doesn’t mean they’re not
random. Yet we have trouble digesting randomness; our brains crave pattern and
meaning." – At least some wisdom a time, who's to say randomness cannot
happen?

Oh here we go, "climate-change"! Oh, is this for real? I suppose it is because
it is the same bullshit over and over again. I cannot believe I even have to
say that: if one has a point to prove, prove it, instead of try to deconstruct
what is already a deconstruction. If they are so right and the argument is so
strong they just focus on it and not on those saying they cannot sustain their
point (which they can't).

Consensus: again, maybe 200% of scientists or all living and the non-living
entities on Earth may also agree that gravity doesn't exist, so, since Nature
works by "consensus", we would have a gravity-free day and we could all go
happily floating around… so not happening!

Now the golden part: "The planet’s surface temperature has risen by about 1.5
degrees Fahrenheit in the past 130 years, and human actions, including the
burning of fossil fuels, are extremely likely to have been the dominant cause
since the mid-20th century." Firstly, planet average temperature is a useless
statistics; it's like saying no one is hungry in my statistical example above.
An increase of 1.5ºF = 0.83ºC. That in the MEAN temperature of the Earth,
which is to say absolutely nothing! Temperatures on the planet go easily from
-50ºC/-58ºF/223K to 50ºC/122ºF/323K or more. Lowest natural temperature ever
recorded on the surface of Earth was -89ºC/-128ºF/184K in the Soviet Vostok
Station in Antarctica (21 July 1983), the highest being 57ºC/134ºF/330K at
Greenland Ranch in the Death Valley in California (10 July 1913).

Now the puff, out of the blue part: "and human actions, including the burning
of fossil fuels, are extremely likely to have been the dominant cause since
the mid-20th century." Based on what evidence exactly? Because the author has
already warned about correlation and clustered events, so he cannot possibly
be implying that, right? Moreover, there are plenty more plausible and
reasonable explanations for the rise in temperature, the DETECTION of which
could be due to human activities, but they are CERTAINLY not the cause on a
global scale. Oh, it gets worse, of course it does! Really? I feel like in
elementary school because again instead of advance their climate warming
argument they are again trying to discredit those opposing it. More to the
point, it does not matter from where it comes from as long as the argument is
sound. The laws of Nature are what they are, regardless of who uncovers them.
If the argument is not good, one refutes it with another argument not using ad
hominen fallacies.

Is it just me, or all I could grasp from his conclusions to the survey
presented was that those with stronger opinions were exactly those with more
knowledge of the subject? Well, obviously, isn't it? Oh, yeah, given his last
survey example, people should not stop to think (of course, if we ever do, we
won't swallow so much crap!)

Science has no opposites ("antagonist tribes"); it either is or is not. In
Science there is place for DEMONSTRATION and ARGUMENTATION, not BELIEVES. One
can of course believes his arguments are correct but cannot hold to them once
they are proved wrong, otherwise we scape the realm of science, at which point
a discussion in no longer valid. People are free to believe whatever they
want, but they are not free to spread unfounded "scientific" arguments,
creating a state of "climate terrorism".

"Science appeals to our rational brain, but our beliefs are motivated largely
by emotion, and the biggest motivation is remaining tight with our peers." –
Yes, that is exactly it, but it is the other way around. It seems to me that
scientists are the ones who do not want to let go of the climate warming
bandwagon and all the research money it entails (more than 100 billion dollars
have been wasted in the past 20 years and has of course proved nothing!).

"Convert": is that a word to be used in any scientific discussion?!!! I cannot
even believe I waste my time!!!

What? What? Really the world has gone mad!!! "Do you believe in them or me?"
First of all she should be deserted. That is blackmail of the worst kind. I
mean climate warming alarmists lack so much arguments that they have to retort
to that low level kind of harassment?!!! Do I even need to go on this???

"We believe in scientific ideas not because we have truly evaluated all the
evidence but because we feel an affinity for the scientific community." – That
is true, until they usurped that affinity (trust!).

“There aren't really two sides to all these issues. Climate change is
happening.” – Absolutely true. Climate changes is not a noun, it is a
sentence, climate (subject) changes (verb). It has been changing since Earth
was formed and will continue to do so. What would generate cause for worry is
if it actually stopped changing, that indeed would be not the norm (not
normal).

He is using the doubt of measles vaccine to advance his argument on climate
warming, and that is a fallacy construction. Just because one was wrong does
not means the other is. That is false and emotional leading, something used a
lot, of course, since they lack any real arguments.

"keep laws governing greenhouse gas emissions from being enacted." – Rightly
so! Those laws won't help when changes in nature come. They would only make
humanity worse, way, way, worse.

"But the claim becomes more likely to be seen as plausible if scientists go
beyond their professional expertise and begin advocating specific policies." –
They can barely do science; they don't have to advocate policies, they have to
prove with reasonable sound arguments and without fallacies their claims.

"It's the way science tells us the truth rather than what we'd like the truth
to be. Scientists can be as dogmatic as anyone else — but their dogma is
always wilting in the hot glare of new research. In science it’s not a sin to
change your mind when the evidence demands it." – Too bad they are not
following this principle anymore.

------
Futurebot
There are many well-known reasons for (US-based) anti-elitism/anti-
intellectualism: religious/religion-influenced cultural beliefs, poor
education, mass media failures, insular cultural groups that invent alternate
explanations for things, and plain old ignorance. There's also Agnotology -
"culturally induced ignorance", which is important to understand (and deal
with) in the context of this topic.

There is, however, another reason, which may be less obvious than the above.
It applies to people who do, in fact, know better, but maintain
laughable/ignorant/ridiculous positions about issues regardless. Let's call
them "Future Policy Fearers." There was a brilliant comment on Less Wrong
([http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ph/youre_entitled_to_arguments_but_...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ph/youre_entitled_to_arguments_but_not_that/1mdz))
that sums this view up perfectly (this particular example uses climate
change/AGW, but it could be about Creationism/Evolution or a hundred other
things):

"It becomes a signaling game, in which each choice of belief will be
understood as exactly how you would communicate a particular choice of
political move, and the costs of making the wrong political move feel very
high. So the belief decisions and the political actions become tangled up.
Roughly, people have no way of saying:

'I believe that in terms of pure decision theory, the predicted AGW damage and
costs of further investigation and costs of delay are high enough that
mitigation attempts should start now. But I don't want to give up my {economic
privileges / substantive national sovereignty / chance to get the standard of
living of past carbon-emitting nations} without a fight, because I don't want
groups in the future like {scientists / profit-hating hippie tree-huggers /
freedom-hating U.N. environmental bureaucrats / greedy unfair first-world
hypocrites} to think I'll just roll over when they try to impose concessions
on me, in the name of premises that will feel psychologically as though they
might just as well have been made up. In that future situation, it will be
important for me to be able to credibly threaten outrage at being forced into
such concessions. But as long as nobody else is going to take me for their
fool, the sacrifices needed to prevent AGW are fine with me; we could start
today.'

So instead, they say: 'I believe that the case for AGW isn't strong enough. I
demand clearer proof.'

If it were possible to negotiate separately about AGW action and about
precedents of policy concessions to e.g. scientists' claims, then you might
see less decision-theoretic insanity around the AGW action question itself."

This group is just as important when dealing with perceived ignorance as those
who are victims of Agnotology. Their actions and positions act as a proxy for
a future power struggle, and should be understood as such.

------
kaue
kkk

