
The rise and fall of scientific authority, and how to bring it back - bookofjoe
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00872-w
======
charliesharding
The way in which public considers science today is much more analogous to the
way the public considered religion during the time of Galileo. Think of the
way people are castigated for not believing in scientific "truths". I see
signs in peoples yard saying that "in this house, we believe science is real".
As someone who has studied biochemistry for years, this kind of reverence for
science is truly troubling. The one thing you learn in high level science is
that nobody really knows what they're talking about, paradigms shift, and
further study is required. Blind devotion and rejection of different
viewpoints is dangerous regardless of which cause is being dogmatically held.

This article is ironically akin to the 'The Preaching of St Paul', except that
instead of burning Galileo's work, the author is trying to burn religious
texts and dissenting viewpoints to their "settled science".

~~~
balabaster
I believe this is a public perception problem. The reason that a troubling
number of people no longer believe in science isn't that scientific method is
flawed or that people don't believe in scientific method. The bigger concern
is the way that scientific studies are mounted, paid for by interested parties
that have conflicts of interest to produce results favourable to a desired
outcome and then they're presented as science instead of politics.

When one can't trust the information they're looking at without having to dig
into the political backing of the study and the results and without having to
wonder which outliers have been trimmed to further hammer home the point of
the stakeholders, we're no longer looking at science, we're looking at
propaganda.

So the problem isn't science. The problem is the manner in which science is
being subverted for financial gain. That's not science.

This is why science is losing credibility and authority outside of scientific
circles.

If you want credibility and authority, you have to not only act with
integrity, you have to be seen to be acting with integrity. It does't matter
how honest your study or how objective your results, if people look at your
study and see that it was funded by Monsanto and makes Monsanto look good, it
looks like Monsanto paid for a study to make Monsanto look good and therefore
it's biased and can be ignored.

This is life. If you want to be seen as having integrity, you have to act with
integrity. And when people who were already distrusting of the way science is
presented in the media are being told that they can't trust the media by
authority figures, as ridiculous as those authority figures may be, eventually
people stop listening until the furor abates.

~~~
joe_the_user
I would say that an even larger problem exists.

Among the public, science has always had some portion of people who understood
it's processes as those of a secular priesthood and those who understood it's
processes as discovering the truth through skepticism and experimentation.
Even among this working scientists, this division has existed (and given a
society that never discarded religion, anti-science along with anti-
intellectual views have naturally always been part of American thought).

The problem today is two-fold. Aside from the corruption of scientific
processes others have noted, the other aspect is the majority of people aren't
seeing the material gains that science offers the world - science is broadly
part of progress and when the average American's life expectancy and median
income isn't increasing, why would they believe in progress?

~~~
balabaster
It's like hearing that science says that fat is bad... and then eggs are bad
for you... and alcohol is bad... and then another study says that a glass of
wine a day is good for your heart... and salt is bad... then sugar is bad...
then carbohydrates are bad... and now fat is good as long as you don't overdo
carbohydrates... and eggs have good cholesterol and are really good for you...
and salt is necessary to balance hydration... and sugar isn't bad as long as
it's balanced with fibre.

When the studies say so many different things, all contradictory and all
purporting to be good and then bad and then good again, people give up trying
to understand.

Why should I believe that anything I eat today is bad when tomorrow you're
just going to tell me that it's good for me again?

People are tired of listening to science that appears to ebb and flow like the
tides.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
That's not science though - that's a single study or two being blown out of
proportion. It's an element of science, a snapshot of knowledge, but the
scientific method requires that we continually refine those messages and
ideas, and that's not happening - we do an experiment, and then without any
more corroboration or reproduction it's released to the public. We are seeing
tiny pieces of science, but the problem is we're seeing every step and going
"oh look, there's science!" and treating it as absolute truth instead of
giving time for things to develop and figure out what it is we're looking at.

~~~
aeternus
Yes, but the scientific community has in-part brought this upon themselves.

The actual research is inaccessible to the public, hidden behind paywalls in
subscription-only journals, and written in a form that is very difficult if
not impossible for the general public to understand.

For most of the general public, the output of the scientific community is just
a poorly translated and often misleading headline.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
It's also become incredibly complex and utterly alien to even practitioners in
the fields - I can't read computer science doctoral dissertations with any
degree of understanding. That's not a failing of the language, that's an
evolution of it - we're at a point now where we need years and years of
education to be able to be able to speak the language required for the
research.

It absolutely is difficult for the general public, but that's not a failing,
that's the state of the art.

~~~
kian
I’d argue that this is, in fact, a failing of the language of description, and
that going back and refactoring terms and systematizing the folk knowledge of
a given field would go a long way towards fixing the public attitudes towards
that field. We should give more respect to people who make existing concepts
easier to understand, or simpler and cheaper to prove or demonstrate. Then
maybe we wouldn’t have to spend so much time bemoaning the poor state of
education.

~~~
dnbgfher
I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding the problem.

We do have a problem with nomenclature being fractured, even within fields,
never mind between them. But that's not the problem.

The problem is that when you get deep enough into how things work, things just
get really complex and they stop behaving in ways and patterns that humans
experience the world. They end up being things that cannot be simplified down
to a common human experience in any meaningful way. At best, you can take a
portion of the concept and make an analogy to some limited portion of a common
experience without lying too much. But they are fundamentally not the same, so
you cannot use the analogy to discover anything new about the original
concept.

There is also a problem of the time it takes to internalize new ideas and
concepts. You can't quickly and easily give someone an intuitive understanding
of anything - it takes work and experience and time on their part to get
there. I don't see how going and reworking nomenclatures of entire fields is
going to make people more willing or able to devote their time to this. Mostly
you'll have to put in incredible amount of work, convince far too many people
to do things a different way because you said so, and all you'll have really
done is save some (significant) annoyance from students getting their feet wet
in a new field.

~~~
kian
Sorry, I didn't see your reply to this until just now. I hope that you get a
chance to see mine:

I have to disagree that nomenclature being fractured is not the problem.
Within any given field, it is true that as you go deep enough into how things
work, it gets complicated and hectic. However, as we have done throughout the
entire written history of humanity, we have a special set of tools to help us
engage with those complications, and reduce them down to complexes of simple
objects whose behavior we understand - mathematics. If we are unable to reach
deeply enough within a single field, it is because the tools we teach are not
up to the task.

A large part of the issue is that the mathematics in common use in these
disciplines, and at the elementary level, is in need of an upgrade. That
upgrade is in the process of being performed (category theory), and as we
learn to apply it in more and more fields, concepts and processes that seem
deep, difficult, and essentially different turn out to be related in
mathematically precise 'analogies'. This means that the same set of 'deep
concepts', applied with different sets base objects and different operators
that obey the same rules, will unfold into some of the main ideas in each
discipline. Baez's Physics, Logic, Topology, Computation, a Rosetta stone is a
good example of the beginnings of this, but googling 'applied category theory'
or 'applied category theory course azimuth' ought to bring you some
interesting extra links.

More generally, what we see of as specific processes within a particular
field, when viewed through the right lenses, I expect we will find are instead
instantiations of much more general processes that are the same across most,
if not all, fields of discipline. How will we convince everyone to use these
different naming systems and toolsets? Because those people who do use them
will perform better, and the logic of competition will pull the educational
system and society along with them.

If you disagree, I'd love to hear more about it. Nomenclature and Education
are near and dear to me - I always jump and an opportunity to discuss with
someone who does so in good faith.

------
lkrubner
About this:

" _Hanging in the Louvre Museum in Paris is an imposing painting, The
Preaching of St Paul at Ephesus. In this 1649 work by Eustache Le Sueur, the
fiery apostle lifts his right hand as if scolding the audience, while
clutching a book of scripture in his left. Among the rapt or fearful listeners
are people busily throwing books into a fire._ "

Okay, but in the USA, over the last 60 years we've seen an astonishing loss of
religious authority, as well as parental authority, as well as teaching
authority. There is no way to bring back scientific authority without also
discussing the wider loss of authority.

Nor is the USA alone, but it is not the entire West that is effected. Anyone
who wants to see the contrast can visit Britain, and then Poland. In Poland,
you can still see the older social structures, and older notions about both
religious authority and teaching authority and parental authority.

In the USA, in the year 2019, it is common to see these things:

1\. a person at a party says they are "spiritual, but I don't believe in
organized religion"

2\. a parent spanks their child because their child misbehaved, and the parent
is then investigated by the authorities

3\. a teacher goes off script to offer their personal opinion of the Vietnam
War, and then finds their whole career is at risk

Every single profession is now under attack in the USA. The older spirit of
independent professions is now under attack.

I'm not saying this is good or bad, I'm just pointing out it is a fact of
life. There has been some progress made in stamping out certain abuses of
power, but at the cost of stripping most of the professions of their previous
independence.

If you'd like to bring back scientific authority, you need to address the
wider issues.

~~~
matt4077
It's not so much "authority" but "trust" that has gone down.

There used to be institutions that were regarded as the gold standard for
truth: the FDA, top science journals, the CDC, the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
and so on.

These weren't necessarily regarded as _infallible_. But it was widely
recognized that they undertook a _best effort_ to get at the truth, and would
tend to err on the side of caution.

That trust is falling apart. Many people, including in the HN community, cheer
this decline. They see it, not entirely unreasonable, as the downfall of
despised "elites" and opening the discourse to other voices, making it more
democratic.

But while the tearing down of institutions is well ahead, there is little
indication that the envisioned surge of bottom-up publishing is anywhere as
successful: almost no structures have appeared, for example, that provide the
nitty-gritty coverage of local politics.

Nor can I think of any actual corruption by these organisations exposed by
amateur sleuths. Even Snowden relied on traditional media to get his message
out. Just today, the Seattle Times (old media) revealed their investigation of
the broken process of Boeing's certification of the 737 Max.

"Critical thinking" is what's usually recommended in these times of
information overload and bad actors. But the term just seems to give license
to everyone to make up their own facts as needed. The result is a discourse
devoid of agreed-upon facts. If you cite inflation data in economic
discussions, the most likely reply is a conspiracy theory about the data being
corruptly influenced. "Think critically", they say, "who profits from <X>, I
bet they get a big fat payoff from <Y> for telling this lie".

~~~
sintaxi
> Nor can I think of any actual corruption by these organisations exposed by
> amateur sleuths.

Wouldn't the simple fact that the CDC now owns patents on vaccines qualify at
least as a conflict of interest that would justifiably erode trust?

Trust is power and power corrupts. Its part of a natural cycle that occurs.
This is why we develop organizations with strict constraints and methods of
accountability such as the separate branches of government.

------
alan-crowe
The article is dated 18 March 2019, but it asks "So: what went wrong?" and
then mentions neither p-hacking nor the replication crisis in psychology.
Perhaps the author has a rebuttal to those who think that questionable
research practices have brought about the fall of scientific authority, but he
doesn't give it here.

Some of the problems lie closer to home than the content of scientific
journals. Henry Gee is a senior editor of Nature. He wrote an article for the
Guardian [https://www.theguardian.com/science/occams-
corner/2013/sep/1...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/occams-
corner/2013/sep/19/science-religion-not-be-questioned)

Rashly, he attempts to explain p-values, and gets it wrong, saying "For
example, one might be able to accord a value to one's conclusion not of "yes"
or "no" but "P<0.05", which means that the result has a less than one in 20
chance of being a fluke."

Respect for scientific authority has fallen because of self-sabotage by senior
figures.

~~~
mywittyname
This has been going on since long, long before p-hacking and the replication
crisis. And I honestly find these to be very different issues.

It was common for people in the US to reject the idea of smoking as a cause of
lung cancer until like the 1980s. Scientific consensus on this fact was
reached in the 60s and was suspected for a while before that. Yet, it took
like 40 years for the public to agree.

Think about what's happening now with climate change. Scientists aren't
undermining their own position, their authority and credibility is under
direct attack; originally by moneyed interest, but today mostly through
political indoctrinates. People view scientists as left-wingers out to
undermine conservative policies and seek to undermine their authority and
influence. Today, these people have much more reach and influence than in
times past.

~~~
brandonmenc
> It was common for people in the US to reject the idea of smoking as a cause
> of lung cancer until like the 1980s. Scientific consensus on this fact was
> reached in the 60s and was suspected for a while before that. Yet, it took
> like 40 years for the public to agree.

You're exaggerating.

It did _not_ take until after the year 2000 for the public to believe that
smoking causes cancer.

~~~
mywittyname
No I'm not...

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3894634/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3894634/)

> The public relations campaign -- which would extend for over 40 years -- was
> designed with the goal of reassuring the public, especially current smokers,
> that the question of whether smoking caused harm was an “open controversy”
> (1, 4, 14).

> A poll conducted in 1966 found only 40% of Americans recognizing smoking as
> a major cause of cancer, while 27% said it was a minor cause and one-third
> said the science was not yet able to tell (2). In 2001 Gallup re-asked this
> same question and found 71% of Americans naming smoking as a major cause of
> cancer, with 11% saying it was a minor cause and 16% unsure (26).

~~~
brandonmenc
Wow. Yikes!

------
orblivion
I think the whole idea of scientific authority is troubling. Of course (as
another poster pointed out) we should all be convinced of the value of the
scientific method in school. It doesn't require evidence. Believing the
scientific establishment, however, is an epistemic challenge.

The way I think of it, for us to believe physicists to the extent it affects
us is easy. We just buy gadgets, and they seem to work. We outsource the
vetting of the science to companies, who outsource to engineers, who outsource
to scientists. The engineers should be able to see pretty quickly if the
science is somehow wrong.

Medicine affects us as well, and it's a bit harder. Cause and effect is a lot
harder to determine, and as such there's a lot of controversy. Since there's
ambiguity, there's an incentive to sell us bogus cures, and as such a (in my
mind) reasonable skepticism of what we're being sold.

Climate science is even worse. There's only one climate, so cause and effect
is really hard to determine, at least for the "consumer" (voter). There's not
only business motives, but political motives.

I think science advocates should think in these epistemic terms, rather than
throwing a tantrum because the ignorant masses don't believe them. Maybe
there's a way we could set up credible institutions that could vet the
scientific establishment for us. "Peer review" is not credible, especially
given all the bad stories I hear about how that system is broken. Can a
maverick get in there and publish something completely contrary to the
"consensus" and be taken seriously? I have no idea. All I hear about is "quack
scientists" who don't believe in climate change, and I get real suspicious.

~~~
orblivion
(oops, this was actually supposed to be in reply to
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19421709](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19421709))

------
hackeraccount
The more scientific authority is used for political aims - politics being
"help my friends and hurt my enemies" the more it will lost it's authority.

Politics corrupts what it touches. It's corruption itself so it looks for
sources authority to accomplish it's goals. When it finds one of those sources
it uses it and then turns it into itself.

~~~
weberc2
Agreed, I feel like Heterdox Academy is one of the few collectives that
actually care about solving the problem rather than blaming their outgroup.
[https://heterodoxacademy.org/the-problem/](https://heterodoxacademy.org/the-
problem/)

------
__MatrixMan__
I agree with the author that the public perception of science today is in a
sorry state, but I don't think that a heightened reverence for authority (of
any sort) is the way out.

We design our scientific curriculum based on the philosophy of Popper, who was
all about the scientific method. We teach that there are rules which lead to
progress. There are counterpoints to Popper that don't appear in the modern
curriculum.

There was Lakatos, who said that scientific "progress" was more about regime
change, and Feyerabend who thought that science was a fundamentally anarchic
activity.

If there were a little more Feyerabend in our curriculum, and a little less
Popper, I think we'd be in a much better state. It's a scary step to take--to
admit that all facts are alternative facts--but once you take it you find
you're faced with the same old problem, just without the authority: which
facts to use? Well, that depends on theories are available for the combination
and utilization of these facts, and as it turns out, the theories that the
"authorities" champion happen to still be the better ones.

But we don't teach people to evaluate competing theories, we teach them to
settle down and apply the _right_ theories, because we have the authority to
do so. It is that very attachment to authority that is undermining our ability
to educate people about science.

~~~
pdonis
_> which facts to use?_

That's easy: the ones that are confirmed by experiments.

Feyerabend was correct in calling science "anarchic" in that there is not one
"scientific method" that will always point you at the right facts. Scientists
do whatever works.

But Feyerabend was wrong in thinking that, because of that, "all facts are
alternative facts". It _is_ possible to establish facts. You do that by
experiments. It's just that there's no rule that will tell you in every case
which experiments to do. You have to figure it out each time.

~~~
__MatrixMan__
It's easy if you're deciding between two masses for an electron. In that case
you've already decided that some theory which describes electrons is the one
for you--so in that context one is a fact that the other is just plain false.

But it gets tricky in cases where you're deciding between facts whose
enclosing theories are incompatible. Is gravity a force, or is it an
acceleration? Each is a fact in its own theory--the more relevant question has
to do with your situation: which theory is more useful?

Your epistemology appears to allow for the absoluteness of facts to be itself
an absolute fact. Mine doesn't. From your perspective I must appear to be out
of touch with reality, and from my perspective you appear to be resting an
awful lot on circularity. People have been having this debate for millennia, I
don't think we're going to resolve it this year.

I think that a more fruitful question would be this: If one highschool uses
textbooks that acknowledge that the philosophy of science is not itself a
science--and presents the various competing views, and another highschool uses
textbooks that assert the absolute truth of scientific facts without
justification--which highschool produces more parents that opt their children
out of vaccinations?

The nature of facts meta-epistemic, and therefore can't be a matter of
knowable truth--in that domain, utility is all we have. The vaccination
debate, however (I just picked an example from a hat, feel free to substitute
your favorite pseudoscience) is a clash between two theories, one with great
justification, and one with hardly any. It only persists because we don't
educate people to evaluate competing theories, so low-effort alternatives
appear to wide audiences as viable contenders.

~~~
vharuck
>Is gravity a force, or is it an acceleration? Each is a fact in its own
theory--the more relevant question has to do with your situation: which theory
is more useful?

I would call that a model, not a fact. And, as the saying goes, all models are
wrong.

If it's impossible to do an experiment that shows one model to be better than
another in a situation, then the choice is meaningless. Both are fine.

~~~
aeternus
I would like to see a tool that lists all modern scientific hypotheses and
theories along with the published experiments that support or refute the
theory/hypothesis. The theories should be linked to show what builds upon
what. Wikipedia is probably the closest we have to this right now.

As science gets more complex, we either need to create a way for people to
perform this bottom-up reasoning themselves, or we need to appeal to
authority.

Appeal to authority is dangerous and anti-scientific. IMO, people are right to
reject that.

~~~
pdonis
I would love to see this too. Unfortunately, at present I don't know if we
even have an institution that everyone would trust to provide this information
in an impartial way.

Also, there are still judgments involved even with this task as you describe
it. How is it decided which experiments support or refute a given
theory/hypothesis? How widely do we cast our net for what theories/hypotheses
get included? Do we impose requirements on the experiments themselves, and if
so, what?

~~~
aeternus
If I were designing it, I'd have the experimenters determine support / refute.
In order to be included, they would have to have a clear write-up of the
experimental setup, detailed results, etc.

All theories could be included, the better the theory, the more confirming
experiments it should have.

~~~
pdonis
_> I'd have the experimenters determine support / refute._

Wouldn't that be a conflict of interest?

~~~
esyir
I don't think that this is an issue. You can make these support / refute
conditions visible, and leave it to the viewer to judge if they're reasonable.

------
Nasrudith
Really science shouldn't operate on authority in the first place ideally - it
should speak for itself. In practice however there are limits to both time and
ability to understand. It should be listened to for being more right as
opposed to position.

The most disturbing part isn't not trusting scientist but not trusting
evidence, even that gathered by themselves.

It is one thing to say believe light has infinite speed but after playing
around with a laser and a receiver noticing the reflection time varies. It is
another to insist it has it even after doing research and experimentation.

I suspect Sophism is the main culprit really - arguing based on feelings as
opposed to facts. Now feelings have their place but their role is to guide
goals. Not wanting to take another part time job on top of a full time one for
more money is fair. Denying that taking an extra job would boost total income
is delusionals (the sustainability of doing so is another topic).

~~~
ben509
> In practice however there are limits to both time and ability to understand.

It does seem that for some big ticket items like global warming the way to go
would be have an open sourced app people can download and play with the
simulations themselves.

The scientists working on this stuff do make efforts to put this material
together in a comprehensible form, so it's all out there. But it's very hard
to trace anything back to the original data, and it seems like we're getting
to the point where enough tools to do this are becoming ubiquitous.

> I suspect Sophism is the main culprit really - arguing based on feelings as
> opposed to facts.

I think that's very much our default behavior. When I've seen policy
discussions it seems overwhelmingly that people look at it through a personal
lens, and then they've set themselves up so criticism of their position is
criticism of them. And then it's bloody difficult to deescalate without
seeming condescending.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
> It does seem that for some big ticket items like global warming the way to
> go would be have an open sourced app people can download and play with the
> simulations themselves.

It all depends on who writes the simulation. Tweak a few parameters and you
have a balmy, lush green paradise in the Midwest without any winter snow.

------
phd514
The opening paragraphs of this article are just another example of what
appears to be an ongoing attempt to manufacture conflict between "religion"
and "science". The books that were burned at Ephesus were explicitly
identified in Acts 19:19 as sorcery books, not "books of nature". Stuff like
this gets published in Nature and people wonder why "science" is losing its
credibility?

~~~
unknownkadath
Oh, well, as long as it was sorcery. Burning those books is a _completely
normal thing_ for _completely normal people_ to do.

~~~
Fellshard
Have you... read the passage, or done the slightest research into the
historical context in which it was set?

~~~
unknownkadath
Have you? Did you read the article? What in god's name is phd514 arguing with?

No where in the damn fine article is the phrase "books of nature" mentioned.
The article is describing the _context_ in which modern scientific thought
gained currency among the educated and the powerful, both in 17th century
Europe and the 19th century Ottoman Empire, how that authority waned in the
mid-20th century and today, and how we can work to use those historical
examples to "break the whack-a-mole" machine rather than playing whack-a-mole
with vaccine deniers, flat-earthers, and so forth.

Here is the _context_ from the fine article the poster is upset with:

"Hanging in the Louvre Museum in Paris is an imposing painting, The Preaching
of St Paul at Ephesus. In this 1649 work by Eustache Le Sueur, the fiery
apostle lifts his right hand as if scolding the audience, while clutching a
book of scripture in his left. Among the rapt or fearful listeners are people
busily throwing books into a fire. Look carefully, and you see geometric
images on some of the pages."

In the _context_ of 1649, a painting that depicted the burning of geometry
books had a very particular meaning. However, instead of noticing that the
discussion is focused on Le Suer's painting, phd413 decided that his religion
was being attacked.

Does this _context_ make phd514's comment make any more sense? If not, in what
context does it make sense?

The only context that I can see is that of a religious person who _didn 't
read the fine article_ before getting upset and commenting.

As an aside, so what if the bible says those books were full of sorcery? So
what if they were? I don't reckon at any time that burning books has been a
considered a great idea by people who read, you know, _books_. (I might make
an exception if you found an authentic functional Necronomicon.)

~~~
identity-haver
It's not at all clear that the books contain "geometry" per se in the
painting. I can't find a source either way but if you've ever seen alchemical
or astrological figures they could be mistaken for math.

The people were destroying their own books after hearing a new way of looking
at the world. How different is this from some kid throwing away his Joel
Osteen book after taking a philosophy class? But I agree that this was
impulsive and they should have given them away instead of destroying them.

phd514 makes a valid point: this article needlessly provokes conflict between
science and religion, even saying with concern that "St Paul is making a
comeback", the horror, as if encouraging people to burn books and "reject
science" is his main work in history.

~~~
unknownkadath
Replying here since we ran out of room down below:

Compared to this _Nature_ article, Ataturk was very direct. Read these quotes
that I found using 3 seconds of difficult googling, and then decide on what
side of the debate he would land.

"I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the
sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as
if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the
principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science.
Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his
own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him
against the liberty of his fellow-men" [1]

"It is known by the world that, in our state administration, our main program
is the Republican People's Party program. The principles it covers are the
main lines that illuminate us in management and politics. But these principles
should never be held equal to the dogmas of books that are assumed to have
descended from the sky. We have received our inspirations directly from life,
not from sky or unseen." [2]

\--------------------------

[1] Quoted in Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey, by
Andrew Mango; "In a book published in 1928, Grace Ellison quotes [Atatürk],
presumably in 1926-27", Grace Ellison Turkey Today (London: Hutchinson, 1928)

[2] Atatürk'ün Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi'nin V. Dönem 3. Yasama Yılını Açış
Konuşmaları (in Turkish). "... Dünyaca bilinmektedir ki, bizim devlet
yönetimimizdeki ana programımız, Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi programıdır. Bunun
kapsadığı prensipler, yönetimde ve politikada bizi aydınlatıcı ana
çizgilerdir. Fakat bu prensipleri, gökten indiği sanılan kitapların
doğmalarıyla asla bir tutmamalıdır. Biz, ilhamlarımızı, gökten ve gaipten
değil, doğrudan doğruya yaşamdan almış bulunuyoruz."

~~~
identity-haver
This is fair, and not inconsistent with other public speeches I've found,
which mention the failures of "Pan-Islamism" and spurn the idea of a
caliphate. So I think I was off base about Ataturk. He was also a hardcore
nationalist by any modern standard, which helps a lot when trying to get
people in a nation to do stuff. I still think that, in the US at least,
sneering at religion or defining it against science is a terrible way to
further science.

There are really 2 types of "religious" people in the US [1], the "USA #1 +
God" group, and the "church every week" type. These need to be approached a
bit differently, I think. The first group's opinions really fall into the
existing political polarization issues more than any explicitly faith-based
concern. In both cases, understanding and using the groups' language would
help a lot to communicate science.

[1] [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/29/religious-
ty...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/29/religious-typology-
overview/)

------
buboard
> Galileo lived in an era that knew two principal sources of authority:

For a counterpoint: Galileo went to prison for his convictions. Do scientists
nowadays project the same force of argument and power of will? There is
widespread distrust from scientists themselves about a lot of the science
being published. Most sciences leech off credibility from the success of
physics. But credibility ranges from "most findings being published are likely
false", to being unable to reproduce, to liberal arts where "everything goes".
When scientists can't be even arsed to publish their preprints on a public
repository, are they willing to stand by their science like galileo, and is it
a surprise that laymen have started having their doubts? Also, I follow a
bunch of scientists of my field on twitter and half their tweets are
political. Perhaps if some scientists were not so overly political, the public
would not respond in kind.

> The authority of science rested on people, not on tools or methods or charts
> and data.

But Mustafa Kemal was a military general, and it was the military that took it
upon them to guard the secular state in Turkey, up to this day (last coup was
2 years ago). It's not easy for science to win over people. it takes work

------
zby
There is now a general crisis of authority. Just recently I have learned one
peculiar theory (from
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mmlmxamw_k&fbclid=IwAR3A42D...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mmlmxamw_k&fbclid=IwAR3A42D-jUmsST5llIw7LQDjf_pYN0sJ909WI01NLOjqwNgPuGjGyiK9X20)).
Some moon landing photos (and maybe films) are really fake. There are people
who believe that this is a proof that the whole moon landing was just staged -
it is kind of natural to think like that, but a more probable theory is that
it just proofs that a press officer did not have good material and just used
what was available. Traditional media are kind of not very strict with this -
I even have some personal experience about that, but people have much more
romantic view on it and treat each photo or other material as fact and true.
With the internet we have more to reconcile. I don't think this is bad - maybe
media just needs to change. With some time we'll adapt.

It is similar case with science, maybe it is not that perfect as we used to
view it. It is very good at where the incentives are well aligned - but they
are not always 'adequate': [https://equilibriabook.com/inadequacy-and-
modesty/](https://equilibriabook.com/inadequacy-and-modesty/)

------
Emma_Goldman
There are two dangers. One is the rejection of the power of science and the
understanding it gives us of various kinds of natural phenomena. The other the
over-extension of science into areas outside of its domain, the belief that
science itself can single-handedly guide politics, history, and the self.

------
tabtab
A bigger problem is when and how to rely on "subject experts". My car mechanic
knows far more about cars than I do, but he/she may also be biased into
recommending unnecessary costly repairs to line her/her pocket.

Climate change skeptics often question the financial motivation of
climatologists. It's certainly something to consider, but they rarely propose
alternatives.

For example, a committee could be set up to investigate climate change
science. The members would be already-retired volunteers from non-climate STEM
disciplines who get the same stipend regardless of their findings, and are not
permitted to receive money for books or speeches on the subject afterward.
Their background would have to be mostly apolitical, meaning any political
opinions in the public record are fleeting and incidental. The selection
process would be similar to jury duty.

~~~
throwawayjava
_> Climate change skeptics often question the financial motivation of
climatologists. It's certainly something to consider, but they rarely propose
alternatives._

I don't think this argument is being made in good faith.

More importantly, it's kind of absurd on face. Science pays horribly. See:
literally any thread on HN about PhD programs. See also: levels.fyi vs. the
starting salary for asst. profs at your local state university branch campus.

Whenever someone makes this argument, I show them a picture of the apartment I
lived in during grad school and then point out that even the "winners" of the
rat race who get professorships can leave academia and double their income
over night.

~~~
tabtab
The fact they are not paid well may be used as more evidence they are "bribe-
able". I'm not saying they have been bribed, only that low pay cannot be
reliable used as evidence either way.

~~~
throwawayjava
It'd not just that they are not paid well. It's the fact that they have very
explicitly and consistently chosen science over money. If they wanted money,
they could switch jobs tomorrow and have more money (and more free time).

------
pdonis
The title says it all: the author thinks science is supposed to be an
"authority". That way of thinking about science is precisely what has to stop.

~~~
unknownkadath
But that's not what the article says.

~~~
pdonis
_> that's not what the article says._

Meaning, the article doesn't say science is supposed to be an authority? Let's
see:

"It is tempting to think that scientific authority is natural and will soon
reassert itself like a sturdy self-righting boat knocked over by a rogue wave.
The ugly truth is that science is more like Facebook, whose positive features
are also vulnerabilities. Precisely because it allows us to connect and share,
Facebook creates opportunities for misuse. Similarly, science is an exemplary
form of enquiry because it is technical, fallible, done in communities and
able to reshape our values. But these very features allow detractors to reject
the authority even of eminent experts."

Sure sounds to me like the author thinks science should be an authority.

"Early proponents of the authority of science had to understand the machine
and develop countermeasures. Galileo, a rhetorical bulldozer, was a master at
it. When his enemies appealed to theology, he went right back at them by
citing their own authorities in neat ripostes, such as “The Bible tells us the
way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go!” This strategy is harder in
today’s world."

In other words, bullshit arguments from authority are harder to make today
than they were in Galileo's time. And the author thinks this is a _problem_.

~~~
unknownkadath
Words have multiple meanings. What you are doing is dishonest strawmanning by
conflating multiple meanings of the word "authority."

~~~
pdonis
_> What you are doing is dishonest strawmanning by conflating multiple
meanings of the word "authority."_

No, what I am doing is giving meaning to the word "authority" according to how
the author actually uses it.

------
asabjorn
Maybe nature should first take responsibility for their own role in
discrediting science before asking others to do so, and stop publishing
articles on discredited takes on complex problems such as the gender pay gap
[1].

There is no excuse for a scientific magazine to publish articles with
methodology that has been shown to misrepresent the problem at hand so many
times. It certainly doesn’t help people’s trust in science when they do so.

[1]
[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04309-8](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-04309-8)

------
evrydayhustling
> Contemporary science deniers have not one (religious) motive, but many —
> greed, fear, bias, convenience, profits, politics — to which they cling with
> various degrees of sincerity and cynicism.

While doubtless describing many, this is a straw man when it comes to broad
mistrust of scientific expertise. Issues like psychology's replication crisis
and the continuously flip flopping advocate-science in areas like nutrition
make people justly suspicious of the scientific establishment, regardless of
how they would feel about an ideal scientific process.

------
yannis7
Adding to the comments of science politicisation, I also believe that the
"popularisation" of science has taken a significant blow to its public
perception.

Take all "I f-g love science"-like websites that portray research as people
spending public money on if chocolate makes you better at sex.

------
hyperion2010
I've been thinking about this piece all day and I can finally articulate what
my problem is with it.

Science is the rejection of authority in the 'authorial' sense of the word.
Pre-scientific thinking relied almost entirely on authorities to determine
what was right or true. Science is thus the rejection of the notion that an
authority of any kind is a substitute for evidence.

Scientific knowledge, when presented as an authority is thus just as abhorrent
as text from any other authority. We scientists trust it because we often have
no other choice, but also because over decades of training we have all done
the labs to actually see these principles operate first hand. Thus we accept
the principles based on our own experience of them.

I hate to say it, but if someone hasn't had at least some exposure to a
laboratory setting of some kind, or experimentation of some kind, then the
fact that scientific knowledge is "right" is completely lost on them, and it
is indistinguishable from any other knowledge from authority. Belief in the
scientific process might be a substitute, but at that point it is no different
that belief in revealed truth -- right for the wrong reasons means failure is
just as likely.

------
gabbygab
"Scientific authority"? Science isn't a religion, it isn't politics. Why talk
of it in that manner?

There shouldn't be an appeal to "scientific authority" but rather to empirical
replicable testing and theories.

Also, the basis of science is the humble admission that what we believe to be
true today is only true until further testing disproves it. It's the basis of
scientific theory that it is true ( not forever ) but only until future tests
may show it to be false. And this is why modern science has continually
progressed since there isn't an "authority" to prevent new discoveries and
thoughts and ideas. It's why the current "lamarckian" epigenetic studies can
happen which goes against the "darwinist orthodoxy" of biology the past 150
years.

The problem with science today is the same problem with news, media, religion,
schools, etc. Politics. Somehow politics has pushed its way into every facet
of our life and politics tends to ruin everything it touches.

------
mcguire
" _The imperial powers, especially after Sultan Abdülmecid I (1823–61), saw
the cause as a lack of Western-style science. Yet could they import it, and
still be faithful Muslims and patriotic citizens? The debate took place at all
levels of Ottoman society, from government to popular culture, in novels,
plays and even cartoons. When Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder and first
president of the Turkish Republic, declared in 1924 that “the truest guide is
knowledge and science”, it was the outcome of an extensive self-examination
that amounted to a large-scale humanities education. The debate turned on who
the Ottoman people thought they were, and who they wanted to become. The
authority of science rested on people, not on tools or methods or charts and
data._ "

And yet, is not Turkey still struggling with that same question, 100 years
later?

" _[Authority], [Hannah Arendt] thought, is neither innate nor automatic, and
facts alone don’t have it. It is possible only thanks to institutions that
create what she called public space. Without that, it is possible for people
who are not personally accomplished, who pontificate in recycled stock
phrases, who polarize situations and who are insatiable braggarts coveting
media coverage, to acquire power and influence._ "

And how often have proponents of science been guilty of those same actions?

~~~
cc439
_" Without that, it is possible for people who are not personally
accomplished, who pontificate in recycled stock phrases, who polarize
situations and who are insatiable braggarts coveting media coverage, to
acquire power and influence."_

This is almost perfectly personified in the form of Bill Nye the Science Guy
post-2000 or thereabouts. I also feel this applies to practically all figures
in the "pop science" scene to a lesser degree. Few meet the standard of being
an _" insatiable braggart"_ but most are attention hungry and willing to
abandon their stated principles in pursuit of furthering their influence.

------
notyourday
Science became commoditized and we found out ( just like we found out with
doctors ) that lots of scientific authority came from the science being behind
the closed doors with People Who Know guarding the access.

And just like with basic medicine people are now saying "Show me!" and "What
about this?" and the scientists are either unwilling or unable to defend their
positions.

That's why the trust in science is eroding.

------
nec4b
People by large still believe in the scientific process, they just don't trust
the people who claim practicing science. To an outsider it seems that these
days that universities mostly concern themselves with activism and feelings
and less so with facts and logic. In their claim of intellectual superiority
they come off very unintellectual and people notice it.

------
tomohawk
Many of Galileo's peers were threatened by him, as they were more interested
in interpreting Aristotle then investigating nature. So, they used political
processes to attack him instead of engaging him in honest debate. They used
authority rather than truth. The authority / government of the day in his area
was the Catholic Church. Despite these attacks, Galileo remained a committed
Christian, saying "God is known by nature in his works, and by doctrine in his
revealed word."

Science that depends on authority for success is the kind of science that
attacked Galileo. It's the kind of science that attacks people today for not
caving to whatever prevailing consensus holds sway.

Science questions the status quo to see what reality really is, and is not
threatened when questions are asked.

------
lallysingh
No. People don't care about right or wrong on the abstract. As long as science
is producing for them, they'll believe it. When it's not, others will attempt
to penetrate the market.

Right now science is automating their jobs, nagging them about driving their
cars (CO2), and generally making the world complicated. Others tell them that
it's someone else's fault, and all they need is the will to attack that enemy.
Science has no counterpoint to this marketing message. So why buy into a
product that doesn't tell you it has a solution to your problems?

Science isn't producing, so the ever-fickle public looks for market
competition.

------
11thEarlOfMar
Like many instruments of human thought, science can be co-opted for malevolent
and exploitative purposes. The antidote is critical thinking.

How to teach one to think critically? And do so truly without bias or
prejudice?

------
davidw
This book is worth a read, on the subject:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Expertise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Expertise)

------
Smithalicious
Science by nature is constantly changing and discovering the ways in which it
was wrong before, so the idea of "scientific authority" was always more or
less imaginary. Furthermore, what gets presented to the public as "science" is
increasingly a series of clickbaity tall tales and biased studies.

Scientific authority is dying because it's not in people's interest to take
scientists as an "authority". That's not to say that the cynicism that's
replacing it is better, though.

------
YukonMoose
Stop giving creedance to people that can say with a straight face “the science
is settled”. That would be a start. It’s the oxymoron of our times.

~~~
aidenn0
The earth is not flat. The science is settled.

~~~
YukonMoose
The theory seems well supported. Unless the ‘evil demon’ of epistemology is
having his way with us...

I’m not sure that’s settled.

------
mensetmanusman
Replace ‘scientific authority’ and replace with any institution.

The collapse of the news (economically-classifieds, technologically-fake news
from Russia, literarily-the best jobs are outside of media organizations,
locality - no local news, etc.) has caused people to lose faith in every
institution.

The fun is in predicting where this ends up...

Especially now that fake video news will easily be disseminated soon.

------
xorand
The notion of "scientific authority" is contradictory with the scientific
method. The scientific method is to independently validate an idea, theory,
experiment.

The scientific authority is that belief instilled to the public that there is
an advantage, or a reason for doing things in a way backed by science, as
opposed as doing things backed by authority.

------
6gvONxR4sf7o
Meanwhile, at the top of reddit is this article:

[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/hip-hop-and-
mozart...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/hip-hop-and-mozart-
improve-flavor-swiss-cheese-180971721/)

>Scientists Played Music to Cheese as It Aged. Hip-Hop Produced the Funkiest
Flavor

------
unknownkadath
>TFW you visit "Hacker News" and find that the prevailing attitude is
"Epistemic Helplessness."

:3

------
nostrademons
No mention of the role of WW2 (and previous industrialized wars) in cementing
science as something worth investing in?

The victors of WW2 were countries that invested heavily in science and
technology, and they won _because_ they invested heavily in science and
technology. Radar, sonar, flight, automatic fire-control computers,
industrialization, oil refining, steel, penicillin, synthetic rubber,
codebreaking, nukes - it's very likely that without them, the winners of WW2
would be very different. And many of those innovations were made by scientists
who ethnically were born into "the other side", but left Europe because of
Hitler's persecution of academics and scientists. This was not lost on either
the US or USSR during the Cold War - we invested heavily in science & science
education in the 50s and 60s because it was a way to gain a military advantage
over our adversaries.

Most of the people who fought in WW2 are dead now, the institutional memory is
fading, the idea of a future war for survival is largely unthinkable, and so
many people don't see the point in better understanding the natural world
through rigorous observation. When you're alive, you're free to have all sorts
of different opinions; when you're dead, the only fact that matters is that
you're dead. The natural world doesn't care whether you're alive or dead, and
selection bias is the most powerful force in science.

This is not an argument that we need another war to get people to believe in
science! The biggest success of science is in building a world where people
are free to not believe in it. But it's worth remembering that that world
might very well be temporary, and if it disappears, I'd rather be on the side
with the better models of reality.

~~~
adrianratnapala
> The victors of WW2 were countries that invested heavily in science and
> technology

So were the losers. But you are right, both sides were forced to concentrate
on developing new technologies by the mutual struggle. The more capable side
won.

------
trophycase
Foucault brings up interesting points regarding science and power. In that
those with power have control over what kind of information is created and
distributed. We can see this through corporate sponsored science, where they
both control the production of new knowledge, and attempt to convince the
public of one thing or another that supports their cause through the
production of knowledge.

IMO this is one of the reasons we are observing an epistemic crisis in our
political sphere, "post-truth" if you will. Where it isn't about _what_ is
said, but about _who_ says it and the manufacturer of such knowledge. A lot of
modern "woke" thought (anti-vax, flat earth, climate change denialism) centers
around an opposition to modern institutions of knowledge manufacture. So anti-
vax is less about believing that vaccines are harmful, and more about being
opposed to the western medical establishment and forced medication by the
government. Climate change denialism is less about holding the view there is
no change, but more about opposing the "progressives" and the "NWO lobbyists"
who are trying to force change down our throat. Flat earth movement is less
about believing that the Earth is flat, and more about being opposed to anti-
christian sources of knowledge as well as being opposed to information
manufactured by the government. I won't say that they don't _believe_ these
things, but when we are talking about scientific authority, we need to
understand why these people choose to let certain knowledge manufacturers have
authority over others. In some respects, their heart is in the right place,
being opposed to centralized institutions of knowledge production, it is just
sad that a lot of them are prone to irritating theories like these.

Another issue with current science is of course funding difficulties and
publication bias. The feedback loop of needing to have something to show for
your work that is going to provide immediate benefit somewhere isn't doing any
favors.

------
douglaswlance
We need a distributed scientific inquiry system that exists on the scale of
social media. Imagine if instead of Twitter optimizing for attention, it
optimized for rigorous scientific inquiry. The world would be a much more
intelligent, reasonable place.

------
talkingtab
Two recent events relevant to scientific authority: the past recommendation of
a nutritional pyramid that contributed to a generation of obesity and the
anti-vaxxer movement that has resulted in a measles outbreak. Neither of these
are black and white scenarios. Perhaps the nutritional pyramid had some
positive effects. And perhaps not getting vaccinated has resulted in the
savings of thousands of lives. Scientific authority rests not on being right,
but on reasoned disclosure of evidence.

We have "scientific studies" being paid for by companies with a vested
interest in the results. (Disclosure, I am writing this on an iMac with my
iPhone sitting next to me). Today you can read how the Apple iWatch will
detect AFIB. It is a study paid for by Apple, published by Stanford Medicine.
From med.stanford.edu "The results of the Apple Heart Study highlight the
potential role that innovative digital technology can play in creating more
predictive and preventive health care". And who can argue with the truth of
that?

But certainly the study is presented with the expectation of encouraging
people to buy Apple products. Neither the Apple site nor the Stanford site
make it clear that false positives for AFIB can result in unnecessary medical
procedures along with their financial costs and health risks.

I'm not singling out of Apple or Stanford - I have great respect for both of
them - but I have less trust in them than I did yesterday. There are far worse
instances: [https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2016/09/13/493739074...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-
to-point-blame-at-fat).

Bringing back scientific authority requires earning trust.

------
75dvtwin
I think to get science back to authority Simply 3 things need to happen

a) Academia must rid self of clandestine corporate sponsorship (so make it
very transparent, or do not use it)

b) Academia must rid itself of 'Coins-for-grades' systems of grading academic
progress of the students

c) Academia must rid itself of so-called-new humanities that are basically
preparatory schools for political activists

It is also fairly exhausting to read these maniacal conjectures, as presented
by Robert P. Crease in the article, linking US President Trump with various
fringe movements.

It will not work, it will not change the public view of his achievements,
successes and his progress on dismantling the corrupt, do-as-we-say-but-not-
as-we-do conglomerates in business, education, politics and entertainment
industries.

"... The same is true of the ebbing of scientific authority, seen in
everything from denialism over vaccine utility to the ambivalence in US
President Donald Trump’s administration over the Iran nuclear deal, hammered
out by scientists. .."

------
zxcvvcxz
"Science" has real problems. We can't even discuss controversial viewpoints,
such as case-specific dangers with vaccines (yes, they are real, and the CDC
covered up data) and climate skepticism (does lowering CO2 really do anything
meaningful, vs. the fact that we're coming out of an ice age from 10K+ years
ago).

But it's impossible to have an evidence-backed rational conversation about
these topics with scientists, let alone the general public.

