Slashdot Mirror
The "Scientific Impotence" Excuse
chichilalescu writes "I've had the feeling for a long time that people refuse to listen to scientists. The following is from an article on Ars Technica: 'It's hardly a secret that large segments of the population choose not to accept scientific data because it conflicts with their predefined beliefs: economic, political, religious, or otherwise. But many studies have indicated that these same people aren't happy with viewing themselves as anti-science, which can create a state of cognitive dissonance. That has left psychologists pondering the methods that these people use to rationalize the conflict. A study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology [abstract here] takes a look at one of these methods, which the authors term "scientific impotence" — the decision that science can't actually address the issue at hand properly.' The study found that 'regardless of whether the information presented confirmed or contradicted [the subjects'] existing beliefs, all of them came away from the reading with their beliefs strengthened."
... aren't intelligent enough to assess the quality of their own thinking. In fact most people aren't even able to think straight most of the time. The human mind is not built for the kind of obtuse rationality that scientists often communicate in.
Scientists really have to do a better job at communicating clearly with less jargon, I think part of the problem is not being able to demonstrate the effects in a tangible way that is undenibale. I think the use of metaphors and communicating complex things in terms of everyday things that people can understand would go a long ways to help people understanding the contradictions.
You really have to catch people in contradictions in a public venue with an argument that is simple to understand and you'd look like an idiot for not accepting.
That the study was done entirely on slashdot posts.
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
Most of the people I know who fall under this description dislike psychologists the most of all scientists and/or academics. I doubt that this will help change anything; it'll probably just make it worse.
This article is clearly wrong, and my beliefs have been strengthened.
I think it's more basic than that. Any ideology followed closely and long enough leads to unthinking behavior and beliefs. Ideology requires a lack of thought almost by definition. Whether that is unthinkingly following a religion, an economic system, a political party, or nationalistic rhetoric doesn't really matter, what matters is the fact that people turn off their brains and allow someone or something else make decisions for them. Once turned off a brain is a very difficult thing to get turned back on again.
Activists on both sides of an issue do the same thing. Each side chooses the evidence that supports their predetermined belief.
The other side of "scientific impotence" is "appeal to authority".
Once issues become politicalized it becomes very difficult to make a scientific judgement one way or another because of all the competing agendas and misinformation on both sides.
Part of the problem is that science is a moving target. Look at dietary and nutritional science. If you're a baby boomer, you've heard scientists say umpteen different things over the last 40 years. People don't mind some change, but they don't like their belief systems upturned regularly by a system that is founded on constant change, but says it speaks "the truth". The truth is very slippery. Look at Fred Hoyle. The guy just couldn't come to grips with the Big Bang. And yet, if you want to get technical about it, what we currently think is "the truth" about the origin of the universe is a collection of models that agree with the data to some extent. Some of these models are guaranteed to be overturned.
Is it any wonder that people are resistant to the pressure to change?
-l
Help cure AIDS, cancer, and more. Donate your unused computer time to worldcommunitygrid.org. Join Team Slashdot!
I don't need a psychology degree to tell you right now what the problem is: non-thinking. Non-thinking makes a virtue out of not thinking [tautological/reflexive]. And if you accept rational science then you're doing something morally wrong.
There, fixed that for you. People don't need religion to make them stupid. They're perfectly capable of being stupid all by themselves. Blaming religion is just taking the easy way out.
Even people who don't describe themselves as being religious, or who are very conspicuously not part of any organized religion are like this. I think this is a general human trait that religion hijacks for its own purposes.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Don't paint all religions with the same brush. I consider myself to be quite religious, but I am not a slave to blind faith. My religion says that the universe was created when a giant cow licked a huge block of salt... while that may be what my religion says, I have zero doubt in my mind that it did not happen that way.
People who fail to examine their religion in the context of which it was written are doomed to falling into the traps of blind faith. Those who can look at their religion for what it is, can rectify it with modern knowledge, and can take into account the effects of history (revisions, political influences, lost texts etc) are able to differentiate religion and faith and have no trouble at all accepting scientific knowledge.
the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
I think you'll find that most of the mistrust people harbour about scientists, and science in general, comes from the fact that the media tends to 'definitively' interpret the results of non-definitive studies. Or over-report studies that, when peer-reviewed, fall apart like a... well, like a poorly-built motorcycle.
But never underestimate the power of hucksters operating under the guise of 'chiropractor', 'naturopath', or 'one who speaks for the man/men in the sky'. They tell you with a straight face that these people who have nothing to gain by lying, and who have dedicated their lives to understanding how things work through empirical research, and who aren't trying to take your money, are not to be trusted. The last few decades have given rise to a real resurgence of anecdotal 'fact' over the scientific method, and it's kind of scary.
I'm not sure which is more entertaining, the fact that you're confusing cause and effect, or the fact that your statement directly supports the hypothesis presented by this study.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I don't need a psychology degree to tell you right now what the problem is: religion.
A psychology degree may have helped you realize that non-religious people ignore science as well.
I completely understand why many people aren't as quick to believe everything scientists say. Simply because scientific -fact- seems to change every few years. A few years ago scientists said there were 9 planets. Now there's 8. First there was no water on the moon, now there is. As far as science is concerned, theres no problem with updating facts and theories as new information is obtained. But most people don't work like that. As far as they're concerned, you're the same as the guy who keeps changing his story every time you ask a question.
The problem is that scientists will call you ignorant or stupid if you stop believing every word they say just because you know there's a good chance of them saying something different in a short while.
Religion on the other hand, rarely changes its story.
D
The first, last, and only tech news site on the net
Even a murderer sees himself as a good person. Everyone is the hero of his own story (in his own mind). So why would it surprise you when a bigot doesn't see himself as a bigot, or when an anti-intellectual doesn't see himself as an anti-intellectual, or when a sexist doesn't see himself as a sexist for using "himself" and "his" exclusively in his writing?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
...choose not to accept scientific data because it conflicts with their predefined beliefs...
In other words, people are prejudiced, whether one's bias is a matter of religion or a firm belief in the aether doesn't really matter. Certainly there are those that oppose anything a person in a lab coat (or a tweed jacket) might say but this is well known behaviour. If the purpose of the paper was just to give a name to this phenomena then personally I'd rather they came up with something more descriptive rather than pandering to the need for a snappy headline.
I don't see what this has to do with science specifically: I'd have just as much luck convincing a creationist that Buddha put the bones there as I would getting them to accept evolution through natural selection. If someone is set in their ways you'll be hard pressed to convince them no matter how you came to whatever it is you're arguing.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
... more like an entitlement mindset.
Religion, and the idea of God in general, springs from the basic notion that the universe owes you something. Eternal life, accountability, a reason to live, the "answers."
Science, on the other hand, starts from the premise that whatever secrets Mother Nature holds will have to be earned through hard work. There are no promises of results and no guarantees that understanding will ever be reached.
So is it any wonder that so many people take the easy way out and choose faith instead?
Exzachary. Science is the pursuit of knowledge, not its permanent acquisition. Belief presents itself as acquisition with no need to go any further.
-l
Help cure AIDS, cancer, and more. Donate your unused computer time to worldcommunitygrid.org. Join Team Slashdot!
...and boy, am I glad the bottom 99% is making the important decisions.
I don't need a psychology degree to tell you right now what the problem is: religion.
I think religion is a factor, but there's something else going on because while most *Americans* identify with Christianity, actual Bible Thumpers and indeed regular church goers are a minority.
First, distrust of science is primarily in the softer sciences like psychology, environmental sciences, and such; no one really questions the atom smashers, the "high-tech" scientists. I think that many people believe that these "soft scientists" are not actually objective, and let "wishy-washy" environmentalism and other perceived leftyism influence their findings; that they set out with an subjective objective and mold their science to fit their personal views.
Clearly, in many cases, this is true, and it has tainted all "soft science".
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
For me, without being able to replicate experimental results personally, perform higher math easily, or penetrate the often obtuse language of scientific publications means that while I can consider a hypothesis or theory, I'm basically doing what those who follow the teachings of a religion are doing...interpreting someone else's work by using my common experience.
The fact that I believe science is largely accurate and a better way to describe our surroundings than religion is as much faith as someone who believes in their religion. Scientific Impotence is another way of saying "I'd like to recognize that alternate faith, but I still think mine is more valid."
It's tribalism. Fundamentalist Islam? Tribalism. Fundamentalist Christianity? Tribalism. Hassidic Judaism? Tribalism. Tribalism tells you that you mustn't rock the boat but defer to the authority of the elders. Tribalism tells you the other side is bad because they are from the other side of the valley/from the other side of the lake/Communists/Socialists/Fascists/Catholics/Protestants/Different from us. Religion, like nationalism, or political party is usually just a big tribe.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
What if that ideology is rationalism?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
why people don't believe demonstrable facts, and instead concentrate on how we can exploit that. The churches figured this all out centuries ago, surely the scientific community can too.
Nullius in verba
Then you'll rationalize irrational behavior, including your own, and leave it at that.
I don't need a psychology degree to tell you right now what the problem is: stupid people
Don't blame religion for the negative impacts that stupid people have upon society.
Er, I'm pretty sure religion is an effect rather than a cause here. If you manage to drive someone away from a religion without doing anything about the not-thinking, they'll just end up at some other religion or pseudo-religion.
An important detail is missing here: Scientists don't say those things! The media does. Scientists say "Based on our recent observations/experiments, there may be a correlation with this reading and proof of x." The media follows with "Science proves x beyond a doubt! Panic!"
You seem to assume that "science" gives mankind an escape from presuppositions. But that's easily demonstrated not to be true. There are no such thing as "brute facts", whose Truth somehow transcends interpretation. There are only interpreted facts.
Everyone has faith. Even a non-religious person presupposes certain things. For instance:
etc. Such things are necessary in order to even begin thinking. Like the religious person who grounds their beliefs on the scientifically-unprovable faith in a deity, the non-religious scientist grounds his beliefs on his own scientifically-unprovable presuppositions.
Everyone does it. Your argument can't be "I have science while you have only faith." It has to be "My unprovable presuppositions are more valid than your unprovable presuppositions for the following reasons..."
"[T]ake the universe and grind it down to the finest powder, and sieve it through the finest sieve, and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet, you try to act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some, some rightness in the universe, by which it may be judged." - Terry Pratchett, Death, The Hogfather
There is nothing stupid about believing in something larger than yourself. As Pratchett says, ideals like justice and mercy can not be detected scientifically, but even the staunchest atheist may believe in such things. It is not religion per se that is the problem. The problem is holding on to anachronistic ideologies because they are more comfortable than the truth. But even the non-religious have been known to do that from time to time.
Proverbs 21:19
You seem to misunderstand science.
First off, lets talk about pluto. There are no new "facts" here, just a standardization of definitions. There was a time when "planet" meant "anything big orbiting the sun". When it turned out there were millions of big things orbiting the sun, scientists needed to decide just how big a thing had to be. The only two serious options were one that would increase the number of planets immediately to 12 and probably upwards of 40 eventually, and one that would reduce the number of planets to 8 and probably leave it there.
Next, water on the moon. We looked for water on the moon once, and didn't find it. Scientists announce "we can't find any water on the moon". Journalists announce "there is no water on the moon". Later, scientists crash a lump of metal into the moon with the energy of a small nuclear bomb, and find that there *is* some water, just deeper then they were able to look before. It's no more "scientific fact" changing then it would be if you looked everywhere for your keys and couldn't find them, announced that you probably left them in your car... then found them under the couch in a more through search.
The other scientific development often brought up in this regard is the whole "we once thought the earth was flat" thing. Guess what? We're never going to find out that we were wrong all along, and the earth really is flat. Never. We're never going to find out that the sun rotates around the earth. The reason is because scientific *facts* never change. Scientific hypotheses change every day, and theories change once in a while, but *facts* never change.
And in any case, which is better... being absolutely firm and unchanging (but wrong), or admitting your errors switching to the truth?
"Therefore, ultimately, a person is left to his own beliefs to decide which study (if any) is correct."
And you just made the science is impotent argument. Fascinating. You never, ever just cancel out studies. This isn't math.
When faced with contradictory studies you don't ignore the science but rank the studies based on quality. Ignore the poor studies and weight the rest best on quality and derive your conclusion. And one of those conclusions may be that no conclusion can be made with the existing data.
"The problem" is people who think there should be a "the" before the word "problem." Especially the ones who then follow that up with a single noun.
The body of science has already exceeded the capability of the human brain to absorb in its entirety. Some people cannot even comprehend the scope, let alone the contents, of what we know as a conglomerate.
At some level, everyone has to take some of the details of areas outside of their scope on credit these days, and it is only going to get worse. It's going go far from believing in the credibility of authority figures or certain groups of scientists. Some form of spirituality is going to become more and more essential to keep the human psyche from freaking out in an endless series of myopic anxiety attacks. Either that or artificial brain enhancement.
None of the above is an excuse to slack off and ignore the world -- everyone should try to be good at something. Nor is it an endorsement of the backward, psychologically abusive religions that are still popular and widely exploited.
But people that walk around thinking killing off "religion" is a panacea scare me as much as the evangelicals.
Someone had to do it.
I disagree.
I think the open and obvious manipulation of scientific data to market and sell products is what has empowered the modern evangelical idiocy in the United States. If you want to see the credibility of science rendered impotent, read some patent drug marketing materials. Another great example is baby rearing advice. Compare the scientifically derived advice given by doctors for infant care today. Then talk to someone with a 10 year old. Then talk to your mom.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
How do supporters of this preposterous, so called, "scientific impotence theory" account for the fact that Science produces the world's entire supply of Viagra?
Scientia potestas est, and sometimes it is willing to share...
What if that ideology is rationalism?
Surely you know people - or even yourself - who this applies to. I know it applies to me sometimes, and if you read enough comments on /. you can certainly find a number of others. Unblinking rationalism will cause you to lose the ability to appear reasonable to other people. This is, in a sense, "turning off your brain," as the GP stated. And if you're very deep in that rut, it will indeed be very hard to get out of it. You won't want to compromise, because you think your belief is the only right belief. It's important to temper pragmatism with a bit of frivolity or whimsy every now and then, just to balance things out a bit. Being able to consider viewpoints other than your own is always a strength, not a weakness.
Please stop pluralizing words with an apostrophe. That is not what it is there for.
I think it's more basic than that. Any ideology followed closely and long enough leads to unthinking behavior and beliefs.
Including... science.
Except science isn't an ideology.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
You're doing it wrong! It goes like this: "Think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are stupider than that." ~ George Carlin
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
Faith makes a virtue out of not thinking.
That would be a surprising deduction to monks, theologians, and apologists of many faiths throughout the ages. Reason and rational thought are not the sole province of science. In fact, before the Enlightenment (in Europe), reason and rational thought were believed to be the province of priests and lawyers. Logic deals only with deduction based upon accepted assumptions. Assumptions about metaphysics are unprovable/unfalsifiable, so science can say nothing about it (the very topic of this article). Some people with faith will determine scientific results differently than some people without faith because certain assumptions (about which science has no say) necessarily creep into the logic. In short, there _is_ thinking on the part of the faithful, and to disparage them by claiming they are unreasoning fools, fit only for padded cells is short-sighted at best.
If science is an ideology, then two column accounting and engineering are ideologies.
But you are exhibiting another element of cognitive dissonance, in that you attempt to reduce an empirical discipline like science down to the same level as an ideology. This is a standard tactic of anti-intellectuals, post-modernists, Creationists and pseudo-skeptics. Rather than critique a theory or a discipline entire they simply redefine the terminology to make it more expansive.
Science is a tool, a methodology. It has no ideology, any more than a hammer or a matchstick has an ideology. That's not to say that proponents or practitioners can't have ideologies, but part of the design of science is to eliminate the biases by forcing methodological strictures on research. Science is all about the evidence, ideologies are all, so far as I can tell, about ego stroking.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Sometimes people will become so emotionally-invested in a scientific "fact" that they will refuse to accept any evidence to the contrary.
Even if the evidence is gathered by the most rigorous scientific methodologies and the global scientific community as a whole accepts the new fact as an update to the old.
These are some of the most people to talk to, because they think they have science on their side, even though they don't.
Define "healthy."
It is difficult to make scientific statements using only the ambiguous language we use every day. So much of science is semantics. Both sets of scientists might be correct: their research right, their methods correct, their data and conclusions spot on. But when the reporter asks "So is high fructose corn syrup healthy?" the scientist has to say "yes" or "no" not "An increase of 15% in intake of HFCS results in a a 99.5% correlation to an increased lipid growth in the lining of the..." One scientist says "yes" and the other says "no." Then they both go chug a Mountain Dew. :-)
Science like many other things has it's own internal politics. Unfortunately this can mean that whilst the ideal of science is great, real world science is as vulnerable to the same level of establishment dogma as politics and religion. For example if your beliefs (e.g. not agreeing with string theory) doesn't match up with those who are leading your department the chances of you getting tenure are slim to none. Similarly with funding and access to resources, if you have a hypothesis that the majority of your peers disagree with, you're going to have a hard time getting the funding or access to the equipment you need.
We should always aspire to the ideals of science but remember why the Royal Academy has a motto of "Nullius in Verba". Otherwise, we become as dogmatic as those we sneer at.
Scientists are people as well - "choose not to accept scientific data because it conflicts with their predefined beliefs". They can have the same problem, and I would bet it happens a lot once careers, huge grants and academic prestige and huge egos get into play. A white lab coat does not make you a super-people, a god, infallible, incapable of being wrong, or corrupt, or bribe-able, or blackmail-able, or otherwise influenced adversely.
Correct.
The "scientific community" has been seriously wrong down through the ages on any number of subjects, the "consensus", the predetermined "beliefs" lead to rote conformity, a herd mentality, and the inability to admit facts and data that where staring them in the face.
You know who's been even more wrong than scientists, and who has actually killed people for disagreeing with them? Everyone else.
Here's the fallacy that's not only pissing me off, but making me incredibly concerned about the future of the US: the idea because scientists are people and are sometimes wrong, their opinions on topics in their field of study are worth exactly the same as that of a huckster on the street. No, they're worth more for the same reason you go to a doctor when you're sick, an accountant when you have tax problems and an attorney when you have legal problems: specialists, while occasionally wrong and human, still know more about their subject than you do.
End of story. Yes, it's your obligation to double-check what someone tells you. But equating what an expert says with what the first idiot of the street says - and yes, that includes your own opinion - is idiotic beyond belief. If you disagree, let me ask you this: what's your reaction when the next end-user comes to you and tells you that you're full of crap when you tell him that his visits to www.whores-r-us.com infected his computer?
Yeah, I thought so.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Rationalism is not an ideology. It cannot be. To be idealistic means forgoing being rational when a particular subject related to that ideology becomes the topic of discussion.
Rationalism and being able to consider viewpoints of others are not incompatible. The problem arises when you are facing what you know is either an irrational or unproven viewpoint espoused as truth by someone else.
A minority of the people mentioned in the study the article talks about are members of this group of thinkers. Scientists *ought* to be. Preconceived notions and science do not do justice to research.
There's a lot of crappy discussion of various scientific topics going on right now simply because the loudest talkers are not the most rational ones...at least until rational people get upset at flagrant opining in the guise of fact-giving.
Rational people are quick to compromise, if given evidence with solid foundations. Irrational people see rational people dismissing unfounded or weakly-supported opinion and think that rational people are unwilling to compromise because *they* cannot step back and examine things in the same way. Being able to resist making up your mind makes you a bad candidate for being, say, a troop commander, but it is the only *defense* to ideology.
Maybe you have a different definition of rational?
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
Post an article on Slashdot showing a relationship between violent video games and violence, and watch the Slashdot crowd foam at the mouth. And I doubt it is the fundies who are doing the posting...
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
" 'It's hardly a secret that large segments of the population choose not to accept scientific data"
The problem of the current society is not the ignorance or non-acceptance of science by population.
Lay people do not have to "accept" or "reject" science. Science becomes relevant to people only in the form of technology. For example, what was the origin of species has absolutely no relevance to practical life of people, for example, so people do not have to "accept" or "reject" the origin of species. In the contrary, "inheritance" and "mutability" as well as "selection" ("natural selection" proved by the way useless - too slow) are very relevant to people and have been used (without much pomposity) generations and generations before Darwin.
On the other hand, people do not have to "accept" or "reject" the "ideology" of theoretical mechanics on the ideological level, because people CAN use it, and if they are using it without knowledge (sic! knowledge, not "acceptance") they are in very practical trouble, and if they are using it right, then they get immediate very unequivocal practical results, and those results exclude any ideological "acceptance" or "rejection".
Face it. There is useful science, and there is useless "science". One of them IS actually science, and the other is not.
Another point: if you have to forcefeed science to people, then there is no such "science". True science does not need ideology. True science is obvious (that's what my late scientific Teacher taught me, by the way, to work on a paper until the results become obvious).
Que to "troll" moderation.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Unblinking rationalism will cause you to lose the ability to appear reasonable to other people.
*appear* reasonable is the key phrase there. The rational always appear unreasonable to the irrational. Is it the rationalist's fault that others don't think enough?
You won't want to compromise, because you think your belief is the only right belief.
Unless presented with evidence otherwise. That's the core of rationalism.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The other side of "scientific impotence" is "appeal to authority".
There was once a guy on my favorite forum that argued politics a lot, and his favorite trick was to link to an encyclopedia entry on logical fallacies every time someone made an argument against him, pointing out which fallacy they had made. I once asked openly if there was a logical fallacy for people who replied to every question with an accusation of a logical fallacy rather than just arguing the merits of the question. His reply was that there was - but he wouldn't tell me which one it is.
The problem I have with your statement is that there are limits to the Appeal to Authority Fallacy. The A2AF would almost certainly come into play if, say, something was wrong with your company's business and you asked why it wasn't fixed, and you were told it wasn't being fixed because your boss said it was fine. The other stupid extreme there is that if your doctor says that you need a surgery but you argue that it's unnecessary, when your friends try to tell you that you should listen to your doctor, are you going to claim that they're just appealing to the doctor's authority?
There's got to be a hair to split around the difference between appealing to an arbitrary / managerial authority and appealing to a knowledgable / professional authority. There's a point at which appealing to the authority of a person who is highly trained in a specific background with relevant application to a "hard" science, one that is testable and falsifiable, should be relevant against an opposition that does not have that same depth of experience.
Once issues become politicalized it becomes very difficult to make a scientific judgement one way or another because of all the competing agendas and misinformation on both sides.
Many of the truly controversial scientific actions that occur lately have been cases in which one side has a majority of scientists in agreement with them, while the other appeals to a very small subset of scientists who gain notoriety by positing contradictory theories, without even bringing up the issue of who may be funding either group or if they have the relevant scientific backgrounds. We're supposed to believe that the opinions of a few are supposed to be given equal weight and consideration as the greater opinion against them, even without published methods or peer examination. I've got a different logical fallacy for that - the false equivalency.
And what you've just said is a well-known political tactic. If there's a scientific issue that comes out that certain people are nto comfortable with or stand to lose profits as a result, make it a political issue. Introduce contradictory evidence without fully sourcing it. When anyone says that your claims are biased and untrustworthy, claim the same thing right back at them. Claim that those scientists have just as much of an agenda as yours do. In this way, you can invalidate a scientific opinion in the public trust.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
This just in... stupid people aren't happy when they realize they're stupid. Full story at 11.
Were you going for ironic with that post? They do a study into how people ignore scientific evidence in favour of reinforcing their own beliefs. You then ignore the result and choose to continue with your own predefined belief that the fault lies with religion.
The problem, of course, is that some people don't recognize their religious beliefs, be it about vaccinations causing autism, saturated fat causing heart disease, or CO2 emissions causing global warming. These people firmly see themselves as rational, when in fact they're being religious.
Science, strictly speaking, is the relentless application of skepticism. Once you close the door on your own mind, regardless if your position is in fact correct, you've started behaving in a religious manner. A person who believes that Lamarck can never be reconciled with Darwin, or that the "scientific consensus" on global warming can never be challenged is just as religious as any fundamentalist christian. Rational thought must begin with the understanding that you could be wrong about things you might think are very obvious.
People's understanding of issues is heavily determined by how they are framed. The frame sets the questions, which in turn point to the answers. Answering "Which side of the issue are you on?" means choosing one of exactly two sides.
Once an issue is politicized like this it ceases to be a question of truth and becomes a matter of identity. You may ask, "Do you believe in evolution?" But that is not the question many people will answer. What they really hear is, "Do you believe in evolution, or are a God-fearing person like us?" Then their answer is not so much a negative rejection of evolution as a positive affirmation of who they are and their membership in a community.
How did evolution become incompatible with being part of a community? This happened not by explicit argument, but by subtle framing of politics. You say that there are two sides to an issue. But that division into two is exactly the moment of politicization. Which side are you on? Are you with us or against us? Do you believe in evolution or do you believe in God?
Would you sacrifice your friends and your community and your sense of who you are in order to believe in an abstract theory that has no bearing on your day-to-day life? I think it is perfectly rational to say no regardless of the evidence. We need community to give life meaning. It's in our blood as human beings. But community life is impoverished in our lonely society. We cling to it when we find it.
Nor does this apply only to religious folk. Say you had a revelatory experience of God that showed evolution to be false. Imagine the social and personal implications of denying evolution. Would you believe, or would you imagine it was a hallucination? As an atheist, I can imagine the former would require a wrenching reconstruction of my identity and relationships to other people.
What you say is true in general: people tend to choose the evidence that suits them (though this is not symmetrical: some people, groups and arguments are more honest than others). My point, however, is that the logic you are criticizing is embedded in the very language of your post. Your acceptance that there are two sides - not one, not three - is where the slippery slope begins.
Evolutionary biology does? Really? I think what you've done is exhibit another aspect of psuedo-skepticism, the reading of headlines and assuming you've gained some understanding of underlying concepts. There are aspects of the theory, such as sexual selection, which can explain certain facets of behavior in generalistic terms, but you'd have to go to neurology and evolutionary psychology to find attempts to move beyond a very "big picture" notion of any species' behavior to specific claims, and indeed, plenty of biologists have some problems with the way that evolutionary concepts are extrapolated to explain specific behaviors. Indeed, one of the chief criticisms of Dawkins' memes is that it takes phenomena that are at best analogous to the genetic aspects of evolution and taking the analogy too far (something Dawkins himself consistently warns against throughout his publications for the layman).
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
So, it appears you're one of the people the article is talking about.
Edith Keeler Must Die
but I still maintain that it is the best way for pursuing knowledge. In fact, science is all about renewing itself, reviewing itself and progress. Yes, I know that there are a lot of horseshit out there masquerading as science. There are authoritative pricks, there are oppressive fuckers, braindead platonicists, opportunistic paper-pumpers. Still. It. Is. The. Way.
Science is often its own religion. Don't let people tell you otherwise. People have an unbelievable faith that science can solve almost any problem, perfectly.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Perhaps accounting isn't the best example for your point -> ever hear of GAAP? Accounting, deciding what is and isn't an asset or liability, or how to depreciate specific things, or what buckets to put certain expenses, is very very much an ideology.
I'd also make the assertion that engineering, in specific cases, often ends up being ideology, particularly in the realm of computer engineering, and all the various flavors of metrics and measurements and process that your freshly minted MBA will want to try out on his next programming team.
In the end, you're right, science is a tool, but many people who claim to be "following the science" are only doing so out of convenience, not because they've applied any of the methodology. Science is about falsifiability, and unless someone can tell you what kinds of observations they would accept as refutations of their theories, they're not doing science.
1) Children not being taught critical thinking and have no training to deal with alternative aarguements to their own viewpoint
2) Learning that contrary to what the GOP wants you to thinks, changing you mind when new data comes in is NOT a bad thing.
3) Religion. It's very nature teaches people not to question things they believe.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
But the idea that the scientific method is the best methodology for determining anything, and that everything can be understood through the scientific method, is an ideology.
The "scientific method", when boiled down to its essence, is nothing more than a belief that evidence is the best indicator of reality.
When you troubleshoot your car or computer, you follow the scientific method. Is it "ideology" that keeps you from taking it to an exorcist instead of probing and prodding to find out what the problem is?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Similarly, arithmetic is the ideology of two-column accounting, and mechanics is the ideology of, say, mechanical engineering.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
Gary Coleman's dead you insensitive clod!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/28/gary-coleman-dies-child-star
> Blind Faith makes a virtue out of not thinking.
There, fixed that for you.
e.g. You have faith that the sun will come up tomorrow, since you have no proof (about future events) that it will, only a premise.
"...Scientists where shown to be just as and in some cases more likely to fail a given puzzle due to reluctance to let go of a given premise and try another one. So we should be careful to equate "scientist" with "right." Facts are facts as we know them. That isn't to say they should be ignored either but skepticism is just as healthy where science is concerned as it is where religion, philosophy, politics, or anything else is."
You did some nice linguistic ju-jitsu by changing "science" to "scientist" as if they're the same thing. They are not.
As I was just lecturing to my statistics class the other day: You can't ever prove anything in science; if anything, science works by disproving ideas. (This is classic Popperian stuff, and Einstein said the same thing.)
In effect: Science advances by two scientists getting in an argument and getting pissed at each other until one guy does some research convincing everyone else what an asshole the second guy was. The fact that most scientists are confident in their own hypotheses is immaterial to the discipline in the long term, once everyone else can replicate the same concrete tests of the natural world.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Peer review (as formalized by scientific journals gatekeeping their publishing) is not a necessary part of the process. The idea that somehow having an elite few "review" a paper makes it immune to the critique that it is an appeal to authority is false on its face.
Science is about creating falsifiable hypotheses to explain observations, engaging in more observations, and either modifying or discarding hypotheses.
When Phil Jones mentions that none of the peer reviewers of his papers ever asked for his raw data, it shines a bright light on exactly what peer review is, and what it isn't. It is *not* science. It *is* a way of restricting publishing. Let's not confuse the two.
> Rationalism is not an ideology. It cannot be.
It mostly certainly can be.
See: Pseudo-skepticism.
http://www.rpi.edu/~sofkam/talk/talk.html
_Anything_ can be turned into a religion.
A belief is just an assertion that may or may not be backed up by good facts. There's nothing about a belief itself that would inhibit someone from discarding it, or force someone to reject all contradictory conclusions.
Positioning "Science" and "Belief" as opposites is interesting. Science requires you to believe things. For instance, science requires that you believe in the usefulness of science. I think you're just trying to drag "Belief" through the mud by assigning it some sort of evil meaning.
Rationalism can be a school of philosophical thought opposed to empiricism.
Perhaps more illustratively, in Jerry Pournelle's chart, rationalism "refers to the extent which a political philosophy is compatible with the idea that social problems can be solved by use of reason."
No, it can't become one. If it's become such than what's being practiced isn't science anymore. Science is an active methodology for gathering and analyzing data. Once that's no longer the case it's not science anymore. There's a word for it, pseudoscience.
Everything will be taken away from you.
The people who complain loudest about politicization of science usually are in reality complaining that science isn't politicized in the way they'd like it to be.
But with the Internet, everyone is an expert~
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It didn't begin that way, but it is becoming one.
Please explain your position. I am not rejecting your idea, but I am not inclined to fill in the blanks in your argument, either.
Bow-ties are cool.
Agreed but we need a term for when non-scientist and irrational people use scientific lingo to push their ideology, i propose: scientology.
per dolorem ad astra
No actually, its not "becomming one". The people who have become disenchanted with their existing religion have taken their initial, inadequate, and over-blown imagining of something and decided to erect a new false idol to replace their old false idol.
The fact that these idolators have chosen to stamp the word Science on their alter, and have taken up the trappings of what they beleive to be science, and then fool other people who presume there exists congruence where "strong evidence" and "confidence" and "idology" into thinking that they "practice Science" is no real surprise. The average religious person could be sold a cheese sandwich as a religion if you knew exactly how to dress it up for their individual needs.
So there _are_ people who have made a religion out of "Science" and for that matter "Atheism" or "Rationality" but in neither case are these people actually engaged in these pursuits per se. The first hint is the capitalization. None of these terms are big-letter nouns. They are, when truthfully applied, little-letter labels for procedures.
Saying big-letter Science for reference to the scientific method, is like saying you "practice Dishes" because have washed your dishes out in the sink.
The scientific method produces scientific results. The method is (1) make your best guess; (2) figure out how many ways your guess could be wrong; (3) figure out if you can produce a procedure that can demonstrate any one of those ways; (4) execute that procedure; (5) if the procedure does prove your guess wrong go back to step one; (6) if your procedure fails to prove your guess wrong tell everybody to see if they can kill your guess by starting at step 2. (7) if nobody can come up with working disproof, presume your guess is right until someone _can_ come up with a disproof, then go to step 1.
See thats a process, not a state of being. And nothing ever gets "off the table" in science. The best theories are those that spend the longest time in step 7.
Thats it. The only "faith" involved is the sure and certain knowledge that if your guess has been at step seven long enough, there is some young turk out there who can totally make a name for himself by knocking it down. That is, there is a faith in human nature there, that someone will want to one-up you. That's right, just faith that someone eventually _will_ find a way to piss in your Cheerios. Its the ultimate game of king-of-the-mountain. And that's the best way we have found to-date to make sure that nothing is ever enshrined as "true".
The people who are full of religion just assume that everybody else has _something_ that feels the same to them. When they see someone who isn't filled with religion they are compelled to believe that person has some pursuit "in that mental slot". There is no real fault to this since many people "find science" as a new religion instead of actually engaging in any scientific pursuit whatsoever. There are so many of these souls that it becomes almost reasonable to believe that mistake is universal. But this is the result of confirmation bias. The faithful seek to confirm that everyone is adherent to some faith.
Here is the first clue: True Science(tm) never _proves_ anything. Really. NEVER PROVES ANYTHING. There is no such thing as "scientific proof". There is strong scientific evidence (e.g. a large body of exercises that end in step six) and so on.
That is also why it is so obvious and exasperating for any person of rational thought to deal with a religious person when that religious person conflates their religion with science. All those books and pundits which attempt to prove some religious point "scientifically". It literally cannot be done. Any attempt to prove anything is outside the scientific method, that is it is inherently unscientific.
This frustrates the scientist because its like having somebody come to a curling match with a book on american rules football and trying to prove the a sweeper was offsides. It just doesn't apply no matter how hard the outsider t
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
how do you think scientists got past the mind blowing inconsistencies quantum mechanics requires us to grasp. ...
By believing what they measure and observe and correlate it with theory?
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
A white lab coat does not make you a super-people, a god, infallible, incapable of being wrong, or corrupt, or bribe-able, or blackmail-able, or otherwise influenced adversely.
Yes and scientist know that very well, which is why science isn't build around authorities, but around such things as peer review and reproducibility. And more importantly, science is self correcting. If you find an reproducible experiment that conflicts with existing theories, the theories get extended or replaced with better ones.
Science simply is not a believe, it is a process to weed out the good hypothesis from the bad ones.
Are you this up in arms when it comes to attempting to use religion as a hammer to force another ideology upon a skeptical populace that will result in worsened economic conditions and reduced freedoms for that populace?
Not trolling; I'm genuinely curious.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
I think it's more basic than that. Any ideology followed closely and long enough leads to unthinking behavior and beliefs.
Including... science.
Except science isn't an ideology.
Except that many DO make "science" an ideology, particularly when attempting to use science as a hammer to force another ideology upon a skeptical populace that will result in worsened economic conditions and reduced freedoms for that populace.
Strat
Why is this modded "Troll"?? I'm genuinely curious.
It's not like this hasn't happened many times in the past, and will most likely continue in the future.
Is it now heresy to suggest that politicians politicize science and so do ideologically-driven scientists?
Strat
Because it's a transparent shot at climate change science, implying that it's all a conspiracy. Apparently practically everyone who is qualified to interpret the data have conspired to deceive the entire world about the subject. I can't think of a single scientific organization in the world that has researched the subject that doesn't agree with the IPCC findings. Yet some folks with no background in the relevant subjects, who haven't done any actual research, feel that they can dispute the findings and allege all sorts of malfeasance. THAT is not science. That's just people with vested interests or ideological loyalties defending their turf and trying to spread FUD in order to prevent any action being taken.
They don't have scientific evidence to back up their claims, they just want to sow doubt. Do they really care if they're wrong? No. They'll simply blame the government for not acting to prevent whatever problems arise, just as the "drill baby drill" folks are now blaming the government for not doing more to prevent the gulf spill and for not fixing it faster now. This, despite the fact that they would vehemently oppose regulations on industry that might affect their bottom line, and that they always claim that government is generally incompetent and industry knows best how to do their jobs. It's all quite self-serving.
How does science tell you how you should behave in society, for instance?
Well, just as a for-instance, games theory shows that a simple tit-for-tat algorithm is one of the most effective strategies in an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. Study of social insects, as well as herd and pack animals, reveals that cooperation among members of a species is a powerful evolutionary strategy. Not the only one, of course, but further study quickly reveals that we are social animals. Studies of the human brain reveal powerful empathic circuitry that may well form the basis for the Golden Rule. It's not as strong as the sex drive (and even that can be suppressed), but there does seem to be a biological basis for some foundational ethics. In fact, it's silly to assume that ethics can or should exist in a vacuum, with no scientific basis.
Of course, science is unlikely to tell us which fork to use at a formal dinner, or why, but it can definitely reveal a lot about basic ethics. I might go so far as to say that if it can't be explained by science, it's not ethics, but manners.
Likewise, science isn't the be-all-end-all in determining what kind of government you should set up
Not at this point. There's a definite paucity of data, as you point out. We've only tried a handful of kinds, and this is something where the negative consequences of random experimentation are too great to risk on live populations. Nevertheless, models and simulations can reveal a great deal, although our current tools limit the scope, and therefore the effectiveness of such modeling. I agree that science is not yet the "be-all-end-all" here, but to suggest that it can't ever be is naive and foolish. Heck, it may well turn out that there is no "best" kind of government--that you always have tradeoffs. Nevertheless, that can only be proven with...wait for it...science. And if science can help us understand those tradeoffs (which, at least in theory, it certainly can), then it can help us make a more informed decision.
Science does have limits, no question, but your view of those limits seems hopelessly naive.
Science and Faith are the opposites, not Belief. "Belief", alone, is too vague.
Science is about what we believe, based on our best available evidence. Faith is about what we believe, despite our best available evidence. New knowledge and ideas can cause upheavals in either, but with Science, the end goal is to find truth, not preserve it.
Science makes some very big assumptions about causality. "Similar causes lead to similar effects." Thus far, these assumptions have held up, but if we, for example, unequivocally break the light-speed barrier, science would be turned on its ear.
I believe there are more assumptions made by science, (science being defined as following the scientific method.)
What? That makes no sense. Disproving a scientific hypothesis or theory does not "turn science on its ear". It happens, and the theories are adjusted accordingly. We develop a new theory or revise the existing one to account for the new evidence and continue experimentation and the search for more evidence.
Seems like you're arguing that because it disregards solipsism, it's making some enormous assumption that could be wrong. If it's wrong about that, then it really doesn't matter anyway.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Gotta love strawman arguments! I never said anything along the lines of that. The qualifiers "usually" and "loudest" are very important here and the meaning significantly changes if you ignore them, as you seem to have done. Anyway, like you didn't complain about politicization of science but merely noted it exists, I didn't say you're too deeply set in your ideology to accept scientific theories with mountains of evidence and extremely broad support among the scientific community, I merely noted that such people exist and correlate well with loudly complaining in a manner which you most certainly were not doing.
But let's cut the crap, shall we? You indeed were, and I indeed was. And your original post was complaining about the evil cabal of climate scientists and their bogus theory of anthropogenic global warming. Anyone could see that. Sure, you tried to be vague about it, but the stuff about scientists "forcing their ideology on a skeptical populace" and harming the economy and restricting freedoms (because the freedom to screw over other people is the most essential freedom of all, of course) is a classic AGW denialist stance. Nobody else makes that specific set of claims, particularly the "oh they're going to destroy the economy" line.
And now we come to the central point of the matter, and why your original post was was modded down as a troll. You are claiming that a scientific theory with decades of research, enormous amounts of evidence, broad consensus amongst the relevant experts, and no denial by any international or national scientific body is a fraud, mere ideology-pushing. You are accusing the scientific community (not just climatology, it'd have to be far larger than just that to work) of conspiracy and deception on a massive, unprecedented scale, which somehow over all these years has not had a single insider coming out with the truth. And you are making these accusations without the slightest shred of evidence to show that said theory is wrong, and certainly not enough to prove that it is the product of some immense conspiracy.
You're talking about "research and facts", so let's see what you've got to support your position. Otherwise, your troll moderation was wholly deserved.
Worsened economic conditions and reduced freedoms have nothing to do with science, at least not the science you're talking about, and the scientists practicing that science have no such motivation except in the minds of conspiracy theorists.
Luke chapter 3 states that Jesus is the 75th generation after Adam. So if one even assume an average of 20 years per generation that would mean only 1500 years between Adam and Jesus. But the bible states that Adam lived to be over 800 years old and Noah lived close to 400 years old. But even giving a thousand years for each generation would only give 75,000 years between the first human and Jesus. Even that amount of time is not enough to explain how people got to all the far reaches of this planet and how there are different races. So one has to pick and choose what one believes from the bible since it is irrational to believe there were only 75 generations and that the flood covered the whole earth. To be rational and reasonable one would have to throw out a huge per cent of the bible which the early priest did not do.
So, you want to devolve a discussion of generic faith and rationality into a discussion of the internal consistency of the Abrahamic religious tradition? Okay. Genesis 11:9. It didn't take 1500 years to spread people across the world, nor 75,000. According to Genesis 11:9, God did it in an instant. The priests never threw out any percent of the Torah; they would have known the story of the Tower of Babel. Now can we get back on topic and discuss reason and faith, and how one does not negate the other?
Well the OP obviously can't provide, so how about some evidence from you? No? None? I thought so. When you've got more than "lol ur a sheeple!", come back and try again.
What? Scientists aren't people too? They have families. They're concerned about the future for them. Don't they have as much right as anyone to express their views?
But in reality, for the most part what climate scientists are saying is the simplest and most effective way they know of to combat global warming is to reduce and ultimately stop net emissions of GHG's, primarily CO2. Just because you don't like the political and other implications of what they are saying doesn't mean they're wrong.
What if that ideology is rationalism?
Having rationalism as an ideology often leads to an irrational belief in the power of rational thought. That is, that rational thought can and should be used to solve every problem.
A perfect example of this is socialism. Today, many think of socialism as a movement towards social justice (irregardless of the means), but if we go back a hundred years, the core of socialism was social planning, that is, the idea that a society can be engineered from the ground up, using the power of the rational mind. The most important arguments for socialism were rational (like "production can be made much more efficient with central planning than the chaotic market can ever hope to achieve"), and the most important arguments against socialism were arational ("people have a right to freedom and their own lives regardless of the common good"). It wasn't until socialism had been tried in practice under a few decades it began to dawn on intellectuals that the chaotic, arational market was actually more effiecient than a rational, planned society.
That is not to say that rationalism leads to socialism. Depending on what assumptions you start out with, an exaggerated belief in the rational mind can lead to the opposite conclusion. Quite a few libertarians believe that it is possible to re-engineer society from the ground up without taking into account the arationality of man - that we are all guided by arational traditions, beliefs and morals, many of which are essential to the function of society.
A third example of the exaggerated belief in rational thought is the artificial intelligence research of the 1950's and 1960's. Leading AI researchers assumed that the essence of the human mind was rational thought, so they tried to model AI with formal logic and linguistics. It failed miserably, since so much of how we work is based on arational processes. For example, decision-making involves so much emotion, that if the centre of the brain that assesses the emotional impact of a situation is damaged, people become severely hampered in their ability to make decisions - even though they can rationally weigh the different alternatives for and against each other, they don't know when one alternative outweighs the others sufficiently to decide in its favour.