
Those who know science are less likely to accept it if it’s controversial (2017) - Tomte
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/08/when-it-comes-to-controversial-science-a-little-knowledge-is-a-problem/
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fjfaase
I would say that there is difference between understanding the scientific
method and knowing about scientific results. People who do not understand the
scientific method will value scientific results differently than those who do.
Doing science is very hard, and there are very few people in the general
population who are able to do it properly. Even in STEM there are many people
having troubles with applied statistics.

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grawprog
I think it gets harder the more the data seems to support your claim. You get
to a point where being wrong becomes personal, which it really shouldn't, or
money and business interests gets involved. I've seen data get ignored because
it would have implicated a golf course loved by the community in polluting
fish habitat. I've personally worked on a project where data we collected was
not allowed to be publicly released, as was actually the terms of our original
proposal and part of the stipulation behind us getting our grant, was that we
publicly release our data. Once we found an endangered species living in an
active mine though things changed.

I've also worked with scientists who basically work their data and write their
papers in such a way that it ensures continued funding.

My time in school was interesting. The first couple years we learned the
scientific method and how to apply it properly and how it made science great.
But in the last couple years we had to take a philosophy of science course.
That was totally different than everything we'd been learning up until that
point. We talked about real world examples and hoe the scientific method is
followed far less vigorously how the meaning of science has changed over
hundreds of years and no one really agrees what science is. Then we got to go
take part in a few different studies. The above mentioned golf course one was
one of them. The day that happened we all sat down to talk about what the fuck
just happened when the biologist decided there would be no more water samples
taken around the golf course when it started to show massive pH increases from
every pond leading off the golf course. It was then decided a salt spill
somewhere a few km away was the problem and no more work would be done around
the golf course.

Then of course a bunch of money was spent building a few more ponds around the
golf course and restoring it....as far as I know there's still problems with
the fish there.

