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The Gap Between What The Public Thinks And What Scientists Know
First time accepted submitter burtosis writes Despite similar views about the overall place of science in America, the general public and scientists often see science-related issues through a different lens, according to a new pair of surveys by the Pew Research Center in collaboration with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). From FiveThirtyEight: "The surveys found broad support for government to spend money on science, but that doesn't mean the public supports the conclusions that scientists draw. The biggest gap between scientists and the public came on issues that may elicit fear: the safety of genetically modified (or GMO) foods (37 percent of the public said GMOs were safe, compared to 88 percent of scientists) and the use of pesticides in agriculture (28 percent of the public said foods grown with pesticides were safe to eat, versus 68 percent of scientists). There was also disagreement over the cause of climate change (50 percent of the public said it is mostly due to human activity, compared to 87 percent of scientists). Here’s a full list, via Pew Research Center, of the scientific issues the survey asked about."
"Scientist" is a woefully ambiguous term. As I scientist, I think GMO food is perfectly safe. I am a nuclear scientist and know little about the GMO process, but that doesn't matter. My opinion does.
That's because the general public get most (all) of their information about science from sources that have a particular goal in mind when it comes to how that information should be interpreted. First a fear is created, because fear sells, and then they offer a politics based (rather than facts based) answer, because relief also sells.
Further, people won't listen to scientists, but they will listen to news anchors and politicians, because fiction is far easier to understand than facts.
GMO means genetically modified (implies cross-species genetic transfer). Some are things like having your food produce poison (insecticide). I'm not sure how my food containing more poison is more safe. Have the scientists actually studied it, or are they just assuming it's safe because other scientists made it?
Learn to love Alaska
>safe to eat genetically modified food
Is it possible to genetically modify food to be unsuitable to eat? The answer is trivially: yes. Maybe they are talking about GM food created to be suitable to the consumption? But that's not what is written!
Same goes for pesticide, some are trivially unsuitable for food.
Sadly the scientists are not the only people that tell the public about science. Climate change science filtered through Faux News for example will not lead to the public agreeing with the actual scientists.
"The public" has a fixed amount of scientific knowledge when there's a fixed amount of time dedicated to it during our education. Total human knowledge, however, steadily increases. Hence, the gap widens. End of story.
Who cares what the fucking public think? They're the worthless sheep that keep us locked in a pathetic 2-party system, and will accept any violation of the constitution so long as it keeps the boogeyman away.
The public think whatever they are told to think by the government, the media and the corporations. Natural selection's coming, bozos - the public are too stupid to survive.
That's news to me. I didn't think the public could think :P
Goodbye Slashdot. You've changed.
People COULD open a respected source to learn the truth, but they instead CHOOSE to learn from inaccurate or biased sources (media, blogs, etc.).
And I'm not even talking about scientifically controversial issues, where one would have to read many different sources and then weigh them to form a proper theory. I'm talking about scientifically sound ideas such as evolution or global warming that hardly any scientist disagrees with, yet the public is still quite split on the issue.
You are kidding, right? Yes they have been tested.
http://archive.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/2225-no-health-concerns-for-gmo.html
Ok, I agree with most of this article in theory, but how was the question about pesticides being safe to eat phrased that 68 percent of scientists said they were? There have been countless scientific studies showing that pesticides increase the rates of cancer, autism, early puberty, hormonal imbalances and so on. They've also shown that pesticides can't always be washed off, and are often inside fruits and vegetables themselves.
Following that, I know that GMO foods in and of themselves are safe, but (contrary to the talking points) GMO foods have more pesticides sprayed on them, so I would be hesitant to say that GMO foods are safe. Throw in the intellectual property issues, which isn't about "safety" and I try to avoid GMOs when possible.
Yes, but generally any scientist* trusts the scientific method and experimental evidence over other methods of coming to a conclusion. There are a few exceptions with biases (climate scientists paid to parrot big oil's talking points, for example), but generally scientists try to discover the truth, whether or not it conforms with their world beliefs.
Scientists trust scientists in other fields because they assume scientists have based their opinions on solid scientific evidence. So, a physicist may know nothing about DNA, but will trust when the biologists say it has roles in genetics, just as a biologist might have no clue about the big bang, but would trust physicists when they say it created the universe. Both the biologist and physicist, despite being in different fields, would trust knowledgeable scientists in fields they are uncertain about over, say, some talking head on TV or some evangelist spouting biblical opinions.
Assume we are talking about credible scientific fields here, not "Christian science" or similar
In the past after some drug or chemical had been around for thirty some years and it took that long to gather data. And meanwhile a lot of people died painfully diseased deaths
apparently public is not funded by the big corporations and surprisingly mass propaganda does not work as it used to. it works quite well on scientists though - they are consistent in their universal trust in "the scientist" and how the current scientific consensus is manufactured. their thinking can be focused and steered easily, because they basically just add on top of the knowledge already "proved". and we are not talking rocket science or math here, this is a talk about climate and human body - something the scientific community has a very poor grasp of due to its enormous complexity.
scientists, you are on the right path from the global perspective although you are probably trapped in a local extreme and level of confidence i would compare to a medieval philosopher debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. those philosophers were also scientists in their times.
It would help enormously if the survey makers would kindly supply the correct answers to those questions (along with some indication of confidence intervals) so we could judge whether the "scientists" or the general public had got it right.
(Hint: in most cases I suspect the correct answer is "Please could you ask a more specific question that could lead to a meaningful answer, not one borrowed from a tabloid headline?")
E.g. I don't worry about dropping dead because I've eaten a GM tomato, I worry more about GM crops who's raison d'etre is to sell more weedkiller, or what insect-repellant varieties could do to insect populations (and whatever used to eat the insects that fed on the non-GM plants) and I worry like hell about all the world's essential food crops ending up '(c) & Pat. pending Monsanto , all rights reserved'.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
They also swore up and down thalidomide, phentermine, and DDT were safe. Go ahead, blindly trust these assholes who give not two shits about public safety because you "fucken luv scyunz, bro!1111!"
>. Politicians push fear, and then lord their position and power over the people who they nominally serve.
Which one should keep in mind when looking at science. Scientists being paid by a grant from Phillip Morris (tobacco) or All Gore tend to publish conclusions that are likely to get the grant renewed. A lot of people I work with are top experts
in their field, whose jobs are dependant on a federal grant getting renewed. Guess how many of them published information that makes the grantor unhappy last year. Hint - it's a round number.
There is a huge gap between what we know about sex and gender from science, and what people generally believe about sex and gender.
Steve Pinker has written multiple books on the subject.
The cause of this discrepancy? Shit, I'll just say it; It's post modern feminism.
Unfortunately everything is skewed in terms of science. Because politics and certain causes like global warming( AKA climate change) pick and choose their figures and conclusions to fit their narrative. What I don't hear is from science directly claiming any real threats to man kind over any of this. Only that their is a discussion of potential human interference and that matter of fact further study needs to occur. If truly for example their is a crisis in say climate changes and that man is the cause. How come science ignores the primary culprits like China? Do you see a Al Gore speaking to the Chinese government on global warming? Do you see Obama speaking as a "chicken Little" to the Chinese companies that spew so much pollution people in some cities wear masks every day outside?
No people like Al Gore and Obama are not worried about climate change, they actually don't want to stop climate change. They want more support in their base for that and so they continue to stoke the cause as being noble. Science is now used like the toothpaste people where 4 out of 5 dentist recommend Crest. So I guess 4 out of 5 climate scientists recommend what? Climate change has caused problems for man long before man could affect any real difference and yet because some don't like what man is doing. They now look for a reason to blame man. When the real scientists come out pointing at real causes with real evidence and proof like real scientists. I will continue to assume the politics is the science not the proof.
that contrary to their self-image as rational human beings who only believe in experimental result, scientists are human beings who need to fund labs, pay employees, etc. and are willing to interpret results in a way particularly suited to the goals or 'beliefs' of their funders? Which means arguing for the safety of GMOs, nuclear power, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, etc.
Spraying 100 acres box crop with pesticide is expensive. So Farmer Joe hasba choice:
Buy brand X seed and $10,000 of pesticide.
Buy brand M seed and pocket the $10,000.
Which will he do? Now you know why companies like Monsanto produce varieties that need far LESS pesticide, not more.
Conservatives will ignore another side of science. Your personal political beliefs will trump science when the findings of science conflict with your political biases. Its basic human psychology and how the human mind handles cognitive dissonance.
This article is about irrigation in agriculture.all about civil engineering including dams,bridges,canals channels river gauge raingauge selection sites for dams reservoirs rain gauge and river gauge stations.
For other uses, see Irrigation
Types- selection of the suitable site for the diversion headwork components
of diversion headwork- Causes of failure of structure on pervious foundation
The columns that hold up your porch roof may look simple, but their history is long and complicated
http://chennacivil.blogspot.in/
The media are meant to act as one of the bridges between the scientific communities and the general public but it's an area where they fall well short of the mark.
This reminds me of the study that was done, asking a group of people how well the media reported on their specific subject of knowledge. Most agreed that the media rarely got things right either by omitting essential information (e.g. "dumbing down") or making incorrect assumptions or correlations. The interesting thing is that the same group of people were happy to accept that the media reported accurately on fields outside their own subject around 90% of the time. Think about those two things for a minute, makes sense that we know more detail about our own subject, but why would we trust a source of information, for things we don't know, that we consider inaccurate for things we do.
Moore's law is not a law. Theory, yes; Predictable trend, certainly; Law, no.
I will believe scientists more than the public, but you can't forget about pride. Those scientists are people too. When faced with observations that conflict with their own they don't always believe it. And we don't know everything. Scientists are constantly saying 'Hey this is good for you' then say 'Oh crap actually that's really bad' 10 years later.
Just because a scientist says it doesn't mean it's true.
The survey is tainted by asking a lot of politically charged questions.
Yes, they're science questions as well but if you're looking for science literacy rather then political factionalism you'll ask questions that don't have political connotations.
The reality is that given poltical factions are going to have ideological positions on some of these things and people that ascribe to them are going to be inclined to say they believe or do not believe something on that basis. That does not mean for example that they are not aware of global warming theory or how it is supposed to work at least to the same level as people that say they do believe in it. The difference rather is that one faction is politically invested in one conclusion and the other is invested in the other.
If you are ACTUALLY interested in scientific literacy, then ask questions on which no major political faction has any stake.
For example, ask some physics questions. Ask some chemistry questions. Ask some biology questions. As them about mitochondria and the speed of light. THEN you'll be asking science questions.
Absent that, this survey reads more like a political ploy to embarrass a political faction that is at odds with their political rivals on a few issues. Which has basically nothing to do with science.
Here various political asshats will chime in with the comment that "but that political faction is full of dummies because they don't believe X or Y or Z"... Well, not believing something is not the same thing as not being aware of it. If you're testing for knowledge then simply knowing about it passes that standard. And if they're mostly disagreeing with the point not because of science but because of politics then their position is not one of scientific ignorance but rather a political disagreement. Which means your citation basically boils down to "ha ha they disagree with me about some political points, what a bunch of idiots"... which is actually a pretty stupid comment.
Look, if you care more about science then your petty political rivalries, then just talk about the scientific issues that are not political. If you can't find any interest in yourself for that sort of discussion... then have the honesty to admit that science doesn't actually interest you and your primary interest is using science as a pretext/weapon to piss all over you political enemies. Doubt that will happen... but the honesty would be refreshing.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
1) What a scientist thinks and what the scientific method would come up with are two separate things. The scientific method is something a scientist has to (mostly) apply during their employment, but isn't something they are required to apply when thinking about just anything. The "I'm a scientist so I analyse everything scientifically!" mindset argument doesn't wash either - no single person is so bright as to have the knowledge and experience to judge a random field.
2) The scientific method revises its improves of reality all the time, but the hubris of any professional is to believe that the current state of their profession is good enough. It is thought in the first decade of a new discipline, but 50 years we look back at the amount of shit we came up with and shake our heads. The same a generation later, and so on.
It is results standing the test of time upon which one can be confident, and neither the safety of Monsanto-style GMO nor THE SKY IS FALLING type climate change arguments have stood the test of time. Some results are confirmed, others are revised or discarded. Some GMO has caused horrid suffering, while other GMO has probably saved tens of thousands of lives. Some climate arguments (e.g. the effect of CFCs on the ozone layer) are completely beyond dispute, others are hokey, and the majority are under constant flux as to the extent of damage. This is science in action.
To say "GMOs are safe" is as to say "water is safe". It's such a vague statement that it's an insult to be asked whether it's true or not. Water'll save you, or it'll kill you, depending on circumstances.
That's not always correct. Roundup-ready crops sold by Monsanto (for example) are not resistant to pests, they are resistant to herbicides. They let you spray MORE, not less.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate
Yes, but generally any scientist* trusts the scientific method and experimental evidence over other methods of coming to a conclusion. There are a few exceptions with biases (climate scientists paid to parrot big oil's talking points, for example), but generally scientists try to discover the truth, whether or not it conforms with their world beliefs.
No.
The book 'Big Fat Surprise" in its explanation of how the dietary guidelines of how a low fat diet isn't backed by good science, showed how the scientific process was derailed by egos of scientists, eminent people, scientific politics, and group think in the scientific community - as well as lots of money from the big food companies.
It's ironic how the public *thinks* so much; yet scientists *know* so little.
GM foods are safe*
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The Gap Between What The US Public Thinks And What Scientists Know.
You sez:
I would also like us to use more nuclear power. My views on nuclear power are less informed than my knowledge of GMO is. However, my views on nuclear power are still FAR more informed than the average person
Okay, as a person of Science, lemme try ask you, a fellow Scientist, the following ...
1. How do you know your view is "FAR more informed than the average person"?
2. You said you were "FAR more informed", so ...
2a. Who was the one informed you?
2b. And how do you know what you have been informed is correct?
The reason why people don't trust GMO food for instance, is that it's sometimes impossible to undo mistakes that are made. Scientists tend to have tunnel vision and have made mistakes with global impact in the past. So I don't find this gap surprising at all. People are wary because they think scientists want to mess with the planet.
This is not the sig you're looking for.
Most of the general public doesn't understand much about science. Not just the conclusions science reaches, but mainly The Scientific Method - how science works. Seems like just two simple words, nothing special. In reality scientific method is probably the most important insight in human history, but this cannot be understood without learning what it is. Without understanding what scientific method is, conclusions science reaches just feel like any other opinion. That's the intuitive worldview most people live with.
I think paycheck corruption in science today is even worse, like with the CAGW promoters.
IF that were true, then the climate scientists who know the "truth" would be able to get all the grants they want from the fossil fuel industry and "clean up" or least get a paycheck.
See, if global warming were in fact a hoax or even over-blown, the oil, gas, and coal industries would be handing out grants like candy with their unlimited money. I wold expect to see the battles like the cigarette industry put up.
But they are not. They only thing they have is press releases and propaganda - usually attacking AGW on political grounds (like increased taxes or some other nonsense.)
Which tells me that there is nothing there scientifically for them.
The evidence is conclusive: human caused global warming is fact.
My view on gene patenting is that any natural gene should not be patent able but the process for insertion should be. However, for any custom developed gene that should be patent able
Let's say Scientist A custom developed a gene which absolutely guarantees the organism with that 'man-made' gene will never come down with the Alzheimer's disease
And that fella patented that gene ... like you said, you are okay with patenting a 'custome developed gene', right?
Now ... let's say Scientist B whose family, for many generations, was severely impacted the Alzheimer's and that individual decides that he ain't gonna let his offspring be cursed by the Alzheimer's, and he inserts that 'custom developed gene' which was created by Scientist A, into IVF embryos formed by his sperms and his wife's eggs
And some children were born, carrying that patented gene
Question:
1, Are those children 'patented'?
2. Are they 'properties' of Scientist A?
3a. How about future generations of those children? Are they too 'properties' of Scientist A?
The surveys found broad support for government to spend money on science
And in spite of that, the budgets for NIH, NSF, and DOE - the three largest funding agencies from the federal government for scientific research - has been consistently flat or declining in real dollars over the past decade-plus. If the people support it, they aren't communicating it well through their congressional representatives.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
If anything, the statistics indicate that Scientists aren't in agreement on the topics discussed-- in other words the science isn't settled or in some cases, hasn't been done.
It's what's for dinner.
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~rubinson/copyright_violations/Go_To_Considered_Harmful.html
GMOs are also just as safe as off-shore oil drilling.
Look, the whole discussion goes in the toilet as soon as they try to boil a complex topic down to a binary-valued decision of "safe" or "not safe". No useful computer is "secure" and no useful agriculture is "safe". The question is one of risk vs reward: are the potential risks worth the possible reward.
With GMOs, there are still many people who believe that much of the rewards are privatized to company profits and most of the risks are socialized. Worse they believe that the black swan risk potential of GMOs are orders of magnitude greater than the black swan risks possible with conventional cross-breeds. Most scientists will simply ignore such unlikely risks because they've been trained that they cannot theorize from very low probability events.
Risk reward analysis cannot treat low probability as equivalent to zero. It must be be like Sherlock Holmes and consider even the improbable.
"Scientist" is a woefully ambiguous term. As I scientist, I think GMO food is perfectly safe. I am a nuclear scientist and know little about the GMO process, but that doesn't matter. My opinion does.
Good point. The glaring assertion that the sanctity of scientific authority would carry forth across disciplines, and that those in different branches of science carry more weight than say --- a layman who has put effort to research a specific subject --- is dubious.
One might even say this tabloid appeal to authority is religious... but I would not grace it like that. I have too much respect for my religious friends. I may not share their faith but I can easily see that they deliberately and carefully choose their sources of information (such as the Bible, ancient text and modern sermons) and consider the messenger with each message. They would not inherently revere a reverend with 'priest' rubber-stamped on the forehead any more than we should defer to the results of a poll whose categories are drawn from the presence or absence of a University degree in fields the pollsters considered to be 'sciency'.
Whatever the criteria for being one, scientists are part of the demographic 'public' in the real world.
There is also the fact that people who have read a fair amount in certain fields may understand the questions in a poll but because of their background they may have different perceptions as to the meaning. For example, when I saw the article "Americans Support Mandatory Labeling of Food That Contains DNA"... I did NOT spot it a mile off as a malicious trip-wire question to expose duh-idiots (which it apparently was). I recalled the recent scientific controversy over whether microRNA uptake in digestion might change gene expression in a harmful way, and whether any specific GMO food (by virtue of its narrow genetic origins) might, as an unintended consequence, be able to deliver such a payload. It was all over the news in the US a few years ago and the 'public' had every right to be concerned. Though the science is pretty well settled (see this excellent article) it turns out that the hysteria was fed partly by a failure of the scientific process, among other things. Years ago when the microRNA article was published it was refuted, too casually, even though its implications if true may be dire. Our DNA mechanisms are well-adapted to deal with these fragments and they are indeed very prevalent. This was never explained well enough to the public, who were thinking in terms of a new type of man-made 'contaminant' that had suddenly appeared in the food supply.
It is the "4 out of 5 dentists surveyed recommend Trident Sugarless Gum for their patients who chew gum" phenomenon, where the fifth dentist's opinion does not fit the message and is not even revealed. Could the fifth dentist have known or glimpsed something that would have blown all the others away, convinced them or shamed them? (the survey was actually 1,700 dentists).
If you show most anyone -- including 'scientists' --- a list of major Yellowstone eruptions over time and point out that it has been ~640,000 years since the last, and asked the question "Would you say that an eruption is overdue?" they will tend to say YES. They may even sense it is a trick question. But a geologist would shout "NO!!" and if another Geologist says yes, they would form a mob with pitchforks-mob and march to the door. Geologists are aware of the fuzziness of geologic time scales but above all, their too-casual answers have been used to dupe-scare people.
These polls have been taken before. And the tendency is to perceive them as a sort of exposé of how stupid the 'public' is. But for a few of
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Sometimes the debate is so politicized that even reputable sources get tainted. An example is one of the IPCC reports on climate change, where the summary (what most people and press would read) got changed for political reasons into an overly alarmist version that did not match the scientific data in the rest of the report. Quite a few contributors to that report objected to the change, and rightly so. Not because the report wasn't a cause for worry about our influence on the climate, but because such politics have no place in science. Besides, it gave opponents of the idea of AGW ammunition to dismiss the entire report, and call the integrity of the IPCC in question.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
IF AGW is over-blown or false, the fossil fuel industry would be spending their hundreds and hundreds billions of dollars on research to counter government research. The cigarette industry did.
The fact that the fossil fuel industry is letting it pretty much go tells me that there's nothing in the science that will help them.
And then, considering how in bed our government is in with industry, I expected the research financing was intended to help the fossil fuel industry. But the science showed evidence to the contrary.
So, please, spare us the whole 'what side their bread is buttered on' argument - it doesn't hold up to reason or to fact.
The problem with GMOs is NOT scientific problems with the GMO itself, but with the emergent properties of its use.
1) Massive monoculture. "Natural" modification, even horizontal gene transfer, happens on a few organisms that then grow in competition with other organisms, meaning that if there's a problem and we keep an eye on it, we can see a problem before it becomes catastrophic. GMOs are put out over millions of acres. If it turns out to be a problem, it's too late to do anything about it before it's a catastrophe
2) Inequality in power in a capitalist society. As can be seen by the current M.O., because there is huge money behind GMOs, it is pushed that we have to prove GMOs are unsafe rather than them prove it safe. See thalidomide for how this doesn't work.
3) Commercial pressure removes choice. As can be seen with Monsato's actions on the available crop of GMOs the result is legal ownership of the work of farmers by someone who didn't make any effort. And the farmer has to prove that they are innocent. See #2.
There *are* problems with the science too, though. See thalidomide for what happens when biologists buy too strongly into the "One gene, one purpose" and "Genes are all that matter in growth" oversimplification. Heck, ID's evidence of Intelligent Design are because they take a simplification of the same manner and the disproof is based on the idea that, for example, the flagellum *does not* have to always have been a flagellum, therefore its components could have developed to do *something else*.
I'm little disturbed that the childhood vaccination poll is only 86 (scientists) vs. 68 (public). I would have anticipated a much higher value for the scientists.
My UID is prime!
From the 1983 report of American President Ronald Reagan's National Commission on Excellence in Education:
"the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people"
"If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war."
What has changed?
So in other words, you complete faith in the scientists working for Phillip Morris, and the scientists working for Monsanto, and Exxon? I have something you might be interested in. It's a toll bridge, scientifically proven to make money for it's owner. Care to buy I
Oh, you think the scientists working for Monsanto are human, and therefore biased, but the guys working for Climate.org are superhuman, with no bias? I have this nice tower available in Paris you might like too.
That's not how it is supposed to work.
If scientists discover that sticking a fork in your eye is bad for you and might hurt, he has a duty to report especially if he is paid by public largess, but the public at large has a right to keep on sticking said forks in their eyes if that's what they want to do.
Global warming...got it. I don't live close to the water and frankly don't like the people that do. You say the ocean is going to come up and get them? Sounds good to me. Fuck the idiots that build that close and no I'm not going to give up my lifestyle and 23% of my paycheck to help "prevent" it.
Which bit was changed to "an overly alarmist" message? 'cos I think that's a load of bullshit. A summary was changed from "Over 95% confidence in the reality of AGW" to "90-95% confidence", which was then spun by deniers as "Only 90% convinced!!!!".
So which change was this you're thinking of?
If a scientist literally said "GMO crops are safe." I would not trust that scientist. That is too broad a question. If a scientist said "These specific crops are safe" or "Crops with these types of gene modifications are safe" then I would be more inclined to believe it. And then the next question is "safe for what?" Human consumption is one thing, the environment is another, the health of the agriculture industry is another, the health and diversity of food crops in general is another.
So where can I read your peer reviewed articles that comprehensively debunk the whole thing?
Exactly this.
What's funny is that when Climate Change Skeptics, the Koch Brothers, funded their own study and planted an outspoken critic of climate change science as the director of the research, that skeptic ended up becoming a believer and published an Op-Ed in the NYT explaining how wrong he had been to not accept the science.
But somehow people still find a way to rationalize it all away as just the invention of a bunch of wealthy limousine-riding scientists keeping down those poor, defenseless oil companies.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
Because it's bollocks.
The sun gets colder, we get colder. Period.
The sun has been getting slightly cooler since the 1980's, and yet, we've been getting warmer. Period.
I would argue that overpopulation is at the root of most of our other problems (or put another way most of our problems are emergent properties of our population)...
Come back when you know the difference between pesticide and herbicide.
That's not always correct. Roundup-ready crops sold by Monsanto (for example) are not resistant to pests, they are resistant to herbicides. They let you spray MORE, not less.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate
You've never farmed I take it? Round up is one of the least expensive, and also very safest to humans. You can drink it and be alright. If you make it a habit you likely increase your cancer risk. As a herbicide, it impacts plants, not animals. More over, if you spray it shortly before or after a rain there's a good chance even the plants won't be impacted to much because it breaks down so fast in water. Even without water after a day or two even plants aren't harmed by it anymore, that's how sage it is. Better still though, having your crop immune to it means that you only have to spray 1 chemical to wipe out all weeds, because round-up is a very effective general purpose herbicide wiping out most any plant it hits while it's active. That means instead of spraying expensive combinations of different herbicides to get weeds but not your own crop, round-up ready lets you use one chemical, and effectively too.
The Pew poll compares what AAAS members believe with what the general public believes. For each of the questions, only a small number of AAAS members is actually qualified to have an informed opinion, for the rest, you are simply asking a member of a particular social class with no particular qualifications.
Furthermore, many of the questions are either ambiguous or value judgment.
For example, the question "is it safe to eat geneticallly modified foods" is quite ambiguous. Does that mean that genetic modifications are always safe, no matter what? Or does it mean that all currently approved genetically modified foods are safe? Or does it mean that genetic modification by itself doesn't cause foods to be dangerous? (If you think it means the last of these statements, try to figure out what that would mean.)
Favoring the use of animals in research is a value judgment, not a scientific one. So is the question of whether childhood vaccines should be required. Etc.
Note that Pew gets it right when they entitle the article "Public and Scientists’ Views on Science and Society". These are differences in views, not differences in facts. And the differences in view are rooted not just in different kind of knowledge and expertise, but also different value systems and different economic self-interests.
For many of the responses, it's easy to figure out the scientific reasoning behind why scientists on average believe what they do. For some of them, I would prefer if the general public move more in the directions of the scientists (e.g., evolution, astronauts, nuclear power plants). For others, I'd prefer if the scientists moved more in the direction of the general public (e.g., population growth, offshore drilling, fracking). For several of them, I wish everybody refused to answer because the question is the wrong question or even rooted in incorrect assumptions to begin with (e.g., climate change, GMO).
Mostly, what the poll really shows is that, while science doesn't have a liberal bias, scientists most certainly do. And Slashdot should stop treating statements by scientists as gospel truth. Even experts in a field often get it wrong, and scientists on average are no more qualified to comment on scientific matters outside their (usually) narrow field than anybody else.
Real work, done by non-students, in places where they're paid a salary to develop things for their employers, tends not to get published by IEEE transactions:
1) the employer considers the design info as business sensitive: how to make a better widget is a competitive advantage
2) The employer is paying you to design and build stuff, not write papers for IEEE journals. Even at ostensibly more academically oriented research labs, one still gets the "you can do that paper in the evening and weekend, but I need that hardware delivered on schedule"
3) Conferences (the first step) require authors to present their papers in person. Employers aren't interested in funding travel to conferences: it costs money, and it takes key employees away from business.
4) (less important) the journal reviewers & editors are from academia (they have the time to spend on it, industry toilers do not, see above) and tend to favor academically oriented papers.
This is why you get 30 papers on some obscure and different implementation of a transistor circuit done on a multiproject wafer for WiFi frequencies: nobody in the commercial world is going to spend their time figuring out the effects of changing the biasing at a component level at a lower level of integration than any commercial process in use AND the student is hoping to get some pubs that will be useful when they apply for a job at a startup in the wireless industry. The student's advisor is happy because it's a project that takes less than a year to execute.
hi, i'm an anonymous coward and scientist. i work in epigenetics. it interests me that anyone would argue that we know GMO is safe while we know basically nothing about how our genome interacts with the environment. "enviroment" means foods as well as emotional factors, like caring parents or war.
given that epigenetics brings chaos to the genome the way nonlinearity brings chaos to dynamical systems, it seems a more robust approach to step lightly. wild swings in gene regulation do not require changes at the genetic level.
most of my co-workers, also in epigenetics, do not project what they know of the epigenome onto what they think of GMO, general medicine, stress, etc. because of this, i find it difficult to care what "scientists" think about one or another thing.
And because you can spray Glyphosate, you don't need to have dozens of immigrant workers bent over pulling weeds by hand. But hey, stoop labor with a cortido is "organic", and as long as I have the money to pay for that product of stoop labor and haul it home in my Range Rover, to store in my Sub-Zero refrigerator and cook on my Wolf range to feed my Benetton clad snowflakes who are so healthy from that natural food that they don't need to be immunized.
Yep.. that GMO stuff is universally bad.
http://blog.sustainability.col... Pretty timely, and hopefully more people in the scientific sector will take this approach: winning the hearts and minds of the public isn't primarily a facts-driven task. It's one that has to take into account the origin of the fears and is as much a public relations issue as "THE SCIENCE SAYS ...".
Even if the science does say :)
The difference between the public and scientist. Might be because the public doesn't have open access to the research data and the presentation of research is convoluted and difficult to interpret because of the specialized jargon used by scientists.
"Scientists" are only human, and subject to financial influence and personal bias. Some examples of "perfectly safe" products follows:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
"List of withdrawn drugs"
"Some drugs have been withdrawn from the market because of risks to the patients. Usually this has been prompted by unexpected adverse effects that were not detected during Phase III clinical trials and were only apparent from postmarketing surveillance data from the wider patient community."
There follows a long list of drugs that underwent clinical trials and were declared perfectly safe for human use, yet were recalled for various reasons.
There is a continuing conflict over the safety of prolonged cell phone use, with many stating that there are currently no studies showing adverse effects. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) says the following:
"...However, because many cancers are not detectable until many years after the interactions that led to the tumour, and since mobile phones were not widely used until the early 1990s, epidemiological studies at present can only assess those cancers that become evident within shorter time periods. However, results of animal studies consistently show no increased cancer risk for long-term exposure to radiofrequency fields..."
There has also been a shift from using Chlorine for water treatment to using Chloramine. This is particularly annoying to me as I previously worked as a licensed Wastewater Lab Analyst.
http://www.chloramine.org/chlo...
"The EPA states that there are NO dermal (skin) and NO inhalant (respiratory) studies on chloramine as used as a disinfectant for drinking water."
"The EPA states that there are INADEQUATE cancer studies on humans or animals."
"Chloramine is a less effective disinfectant than chlorine. The World Health Organization (WHO, PDF 145 KB) says that "monochloramine is about 2,000 and 100,000 times less effective than free chlorine for the inactivation of E. Coli and rotaviruses, respectively.""
So there are a great many things that have been declared "perfectly safe for human use" that are in fact very questionable, especially if you have a deeper understanding of the process by which these things are declared "safe".
I disagree with the headline here. The presumption is that the public merely thinks, but may be wrong, and scientists actually know facts.
Everyone listens to those whom they respect. Some are taught to respect firebrand preachers; some believe any idiot with a PhD. Some look for truth in Biblical quotes, but can't read; others believe in scientific method, but couldn't explain scientific method if you gave them a cheat sheet.
Example: Is the world flat or round? Well, people we respect say that it is round. But how many average citizens have a clue to the evidence?
The are both 'cides'.
http://wordinfo.info/unit/2782
Science, being the new religion, having replaced God with the Big Bang, should be believed at all times. What could we, lowly novitiates, be cognizant of?
When the glowing extol glowing bikini atolls we should adoringly bask in the rapturous reverence of superior minds. GMO, how could they possibly be bad changing the chemical composition of your food. Sillies, we deem it safe, and therefore so mote it be!
The are both 'cides'.
http://wordinfo.info/unit/2782
Round-up(glyphosate) though is one of the least toxic herbicides out there. Numerous studies have all concluded that it poses no risk to human health. It's far less toxic than Chlorine, and we purposely load that into our drinking water. The Chlorine in our drinking water is strictly speaking being used as a pesticide to kill off unwanted bacteria like E. Coli, and you don't see anybody crying out for us to stop that horrible practice of an evil chemical that is harming us all.
There is a famous quote that goes something like this:
" I would much rather be governed by the first two hundred names in the phone book than by the faculty at Harvard".
This is so true. You take people such as those in the faculty at Harvard. Most have never worked in the private sector or in the real world. They are ivory tower academics with little real world experience or common sense. Yet these are the same enlightened scientists that we should revere and they should tell us how to live. No thanks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01...
Just noticed this relevant article today too, about how poorly-communicated and -understood relatively simple information regarding non-contentious medical advice, like "take aspirin to reduce risk of heart attack'.
Using the above as an example, if 2000 people took aspirin daily for 2 years, it's estimated that in that population there would be 4 heart attacks instead of 5. The benefit may be clear and proven, but is it reasonably communicated how minuscule that actual benefit is?
-Styopa
Talk about a loaded statement. "When did you stop beating your wife."
1) Do they mean "catastrophic man-made global warming"? If so, why did they say "climate change"? The climate is ALWAYS changing, and thus "climate change" is a meaningless phrase.
2) They presume that "catastrophic man-made global warming" (laughably renamed as "climate change") IS OCCURRING, which it isn't. There is no warming, man-made or otherwise.
Some quotes about glyphosate aka Roundap:
Europe:
"The European Commission's review of the data conducted in 2002 concluded equivocal evidence existed of a relationship between glyphosate exposure during pregnancy and cardiovascular malformations"
USA:
In 2007, the EPA selected glyphosate for further screening through its Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program. Selection for this program is based on a compound's prevalence of use and does not imply particular suspicion of endocrine activity.[80]
As other have mentioned before me, a nuclear physicist will likely know more about GMOs for example than the average high school grad.
However, this does not make him an expert on the subject, and although his opinion is his opinion and he has a right to express it, it should not hold any weight when it comes to making policy.
This is because he did not spend years of his life specializing in bio-engineering. He does not spend his career days, day in day out, reading studying and keeping up to date on the latest developments. Only Biological Engineer should have the ability to make claims on the safety of GMOs.
Same with nuclear power. Although Biological engineers might be more educated than the average person on the subject, this does not mean he knows enough to be helping to shape policy on the merits of nuclear energy.
So when studies such as this come out that have polled "scientists" on their opinion on certain (usually controversial topics) they tend to do more damage than good, IMHO.
Decisions and laws should be made based on facts and research on hand at the time. Not opinions. And should be revised when new developments occur.
If the scientists were more honest, and not political hacks selling their reputations for grant money, maybe they would have more of their credibility left. Things like the East Anglia emails showed the public what science is really about these days.
We don't need no though control, but we do need the education though. Pink Floyd was only half right and Boko Haram is totally clueless.
Let's be honest about it, every scientist is not Einstein and every scientist is not altruistic and truly pursuing the interests of mankind. There is enough mediocreness, politics and hidden agendas in the realm of science that being sceptical makes sense. Plus the public mostly get filtered access to scientists through "media", which looks increasingly less like media and more like a circus. And let's be scientific about it ... a lot of the "facts" we had 30 years ago have been replaced by new "facts". Most science seems to be about finding statistical correlations and then making confused and incorrect conclusions mixing cause and effect. A lot of the statements from scientists seems to be speculations outside their true field of expertise. And then there is "science" like some corners of cosmology which includes layers and layers of wild speculation which gets presented as things we "know".
I'm not saying there is anything wrong with science or scientists. I am just saying that scientists are people, with all the flaws that people have and all the problems with outputs of processes of people working together, and it would be unscientific to ignore that - as most scientists regularly do.
Why should I hold your opinion on something outside your field of expertise in higher esteem just because you are an engineer? My neighbor down the street may be just as well read on the subject, but may be a mechanic, but you posit that your opinion is more valuable to society because you are a scientist/engineer? I would assume, you have empirical data to support that premise.
I go to my doctor when I am sick. If I needed advice about nuclear engineering, I'd go to a nuclear engineer. Likewise, for other fields. But no matter how well read a nuclear engineer may be on various medical texts, I'm not going to rely on his unprofessional opinion, when I am sick. Likewise, outside one's field of expertise, our opinions are just as unprofessional as neighbor down the street and should carry as much weight.
This is nothing new. 100 years ago, in small communities, the doctor or the preacher was the most learned person so the community deferred to them for all sorts of decisions. Often, their advice was wrong and led to all sorts of negative outcomes. Why? Because those doctors and preachers were learned, but they weren't often qualified in the areas they were being asked to advise on. Likewise today's scientists and engineers may be more learned than the population as a whole, but that doesn't make us any more qualified outside our fields than anybody else. To think otherwise is just arrogance.
I don't care what your opinion of GMO food is. Nobody should care what you or I think about that, and comparing our opinions is silly. But I would like to see the data from your experiment. I think we can all agree that would be valuable to everyone, on both sides.
Don't have data? Didn't do the experiment? Can't even explain your hypothesis in plain coherent sentences? THEN SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT GMO FOOD whenever adults are talking.
The worst part of the gap is that most non-scientists don't even seem to know what science is, whereas I'm pretty sure most scientists do know. This should be Priority One in the American education system, seriously. Stop teaching people how to spell or add numbers, until after you are sure you have done this.
Think about how the so-called "debate" between creationism and evolution would go in a biology class, for example, if a previous part of the curriculum were that student had to know what a theory is, and how science learns things. Imagine if this one trivial little thing, were something people could take for granted is happening in education. If that were the case, in one single day the whole creationism thing could get settled in America. Scientists would be unanimously shouting, "Ok, let's talk about creationism in biology class. Yes, let's do this. Please." And then there would be a discussion where someone finds something they saw that suggested creationism as a hypothesis, everyone laughs at the flimsy manufacturing but "hey, we agreed were were going to talk about this," so then they start talking about what observations or tests might disprove or confirm the hypothesis.
There would be a few minutes of awkwardness. Nobody has anything to say. "Let's change the subject," a mystic would suggest, and the scientists would say "no, we agreed we were going to talk about intelligent design 'theory'" with a little cackle at the end of the word "theory."
"But we're not getting anywhere. Nobody has any ideas. We're wasting our time."
The scientists would shrug and smirk simultaneously. "We're going to do equal time and would then point at the clock on the wall. You see, tomorrow we're going to talk about evolution. We'll be talking about what people saw that gave someone the idea, and we'll be talking about tests that could falsify it. We'll be summarizing the thousands of tests that have confirmed it, and maybe going into a little depth on a few particularly interesting ones. We'll talk about what has been done, but we'll also get the class going on thinking up ideas how how they might falsify or confirm evolution, just like we did in physics class when these students had the opportunity to overturn Einstein."
The mystic would say, "Yeah, whatever, but all that stuff doesn't matter. Let's just talk about what happened and whether or not God Made Us. Let's get to telling people what the facts likely are, or what the facts might be."
"NO." The smirking is gone. The scientists' faces are suddenly very serious. "Remember when we added 'what is science?' to the science curriculum? Remember when we talked about how we learn the things we know? We're not going to talk about the facts of biology today. We're going to talk about how you get the facts. If we get an experiment idea, tonight's homework will be for the students to tell us tomorrow morning what they determined the facts to be."
"Just look it up."
"You get an F. Looking it up isn't what we taught in the 'what is science?' class that you slept through, earlier. Now, let's get back to the topic at hand. We were talking about confirming or falsifying intelligent design. Let's discuss our ideas for experiments."
And the classroom returned to silence -- waiting, desperately waiting for the clock to run out on Creationism Day. It was the first time ever when education approached creationism from a scientific viewp
Asking scientists questions about topics for which they are not domain experts is misguided at best.
The Gap Between What The Public Thinks And What Scientists THINK
There I fixed it for ya.
Perhaps a few of the scientists believe ?
To become a scientist, you pretty much just have to be able to get through school with adequate grades. It doesn't necessarily require you to agree with other's findings, or have good judgement.
"The Chlorine in our drinking water is strictly speaking being used as a pesticide to kill off unwanted bacteria"
Don't we use ozone now instead of chlorine?
If it were unsuitable to eat it would no longer be *food* (genetically modified or otherwise).
though, like this moron who somehow still hasn't been stripped of his license to practice medicine for irresponsible conduct. Yes we should have the "right" to contract dangerous childhood diseases (and pass them on to the rest of the public)... What an asshole!
, that skeptic ended up becoming a believer
He wasn't a skeptic, he was always a believer. I've gone back and read his sayings, they were things like, "we need to make sure our data is solid, otherwise people won't believe there is global warming." That's a reasonable scientific thing to say, but because of that, other people labeled him a skeptic and even a denier. He didn't label himself that way until it was useful, to show he had 'reformed'.
Also, his study failed to adequately account for the heat-island effect, and had trouble getting published for that reason.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Fixed that for you.
"The Chlorine in our drinking water is strictly speaking being used as a pesticide to kill off unwanted bacteria"
Don't we use ozone now instead of chlorine?
Not sure who we is. For my part in Canada it's still Chlorine. You can actually smell it in spring time because they have to up it so much.
Democracy is NOT about people getting government to do stuff, regardless of what. It is about using the people's collective diversity and stability as one of the CHECKS on the government over-extending its power in any direction, i.e. throwing the bastards out.
It ought not therefore to matter if people in general were 100% wrong or 100% right on anything besides their judgement of the over-all state of affairs as affects they themselves (which is the only thing most of us can be trusted to grasp accurately at all).
Leave arguments about harm to lawsuits for damages. Let those who think they can mobilize capital, workers, ideas, and organization to produce goods and services that will provide an attractive investment attempt to do so, whether they frack, nuke, gene splice, rocket, Uber, burn coal, or whatever. Those opposed need not buy. Those damaged can sue. Those providing allegedly more attractive alternatives can try their luck too.
I just saw the report of this study... and then saw this:
Excerpt:
There is good and bad news for climate scientists. The good news: Most
Americans (79 percent) say that science and scientists are invaluable.
The bad news: On controversial topics such as climate change, a
significant number of Americans do not use science to inform their views.
Instead, they use political orientation and ideology, which are reflected
in their level of education, to decide whether humans are driving
planetary warming.
This comes from a public opinion poll released yesterday by Pew Research
Center and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
The poll captured a significant split between what scientists and the
general public believe on climate change.
In 2014, the vast majority (87 percent) of scientists said that human
activity is driving global warming, and yet only half the American public
ascribed to that view. And 77 percent of scientists said climate change is
a very serious problem. In comparison, only 33 percent of the general
public said it was a very serious problem in a 2013 poll.
--- end excerpt ---
http: // www.scientificamerican.com/article/big-gap-between-what-scientists-say-and-americans-think-about-climate-change/
mark "confused"
No doubt that scientists are a bit better than your average member of the public about knowledge of the facts regarding a particular subject that they have expertise or at least some experience with. But "Know" isn't exactly the term I'd use, Scientists have THEORIES that fit the currently known evidence. Sometimes however those "theories" are heavily influenced on the possible monetary gains of the scientist, their personal beliefs & cherry picked "data". Its getting harder to take most theories seriously when in less than decade some of them are proven, refuted, and sometimes re-proven. I realize that it is part of the process, but I think it is far more common today then it was in the past because independent verification is all but non-existent today unless a theory receives a massive amount of press.
There is a certain level of arrogance in making claims that some new technology is safe. We've also been stung by scientists in the past who do not act in good faith and informed the public exactly what their employers needed the public to believe.
Scientists as a whole are more comfortable with uncertainty, understand that nothing is ever perfect and tradeoffs are always necessary, and are also, not incidentally, more likely to trust technically trained people to do their jobs right and not be incompetent monsters.
First, you cited the Pew Research Center, which a few years back claimed that the majority of American media was "liberal" ---HUH?????
Next you said: The biggest gap between scientists and the public came on issues that may elicit fear: the safety of genetically modified (or GMO) foods (37 percent of the public said GMOs were safe, compared to 88 percent of scientists) and the use of pesticides in agriculture (28 percent of the public said foods grown with pesticides were safe to eat, versus 68 percent of scientists).
I don't give a rat's ass, and nor should anyone capable of thinking for themselves, what Neil Degrasse-Tyson, an astrophysicist, has to say about GMOs, or anyone else except for the fellow who originally created them at Monsanto, and turned into the first whistleblower on Monsanto's GMOs, and other top-level molecular biologists, etc.
Recommended reading: Open Secret by Erin Arvedlund (she's the financial reporter who wrote the first articles (back in 2001) and the number one book onr Bernie Madoff.
excellent interview here on her Bernie Madoff reporting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The scientific response to using more biofuels plays nicely in juxtoposition to the very next /. story: http://science.slashdot.org/st...
These results simply reflect more the culture of scientists than actual science.
ôó
They let you spray MORE, not less.
Do you really, honestly think farmers buy Roundup Ready crops so that they can just go and spray more herbicide for the hell of it? Yes, there are herbicide resistant crops, but the systems those are used in result in the replacement of other, harsher herbicides and the promotion of soil conserving no-till methods. When you put it in context, you find that it really isn't that bad of a thing at all. If anyone's got a better viable weed control strategy, I'm the agricultural community is all ears, but until then, herbicide resistant crops are a win.
OK - AGW is a fact; but if you want to spoil the soup have a recognized scientific .214 C hotter than
group (say NASA) put out a report saying they can show that 2014 was
ever before. With a 37.4% chance of being correct. People unfamilar with the exact science
being talked about are correct when they cast dispersions on this kind of report.
It does not take an advanced degree in mathematics to understand 37.4% chance of correctness is the
same as 62.6% chance of being wrong. People get upset when they percive they are being
lied to.
That's not always correct. Roundup-ready crops sold by Monsanto (for example) are not resistant to pests, they are resistant to herbicides. They let you spray MORE, not less.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyphosate
But glyphosate costs money, so you don't just "spray MORE"--you spray just enough to maximize your profit.
Were the scientists surveyed in the same business as, or making money from the GMO's or the pesticide? Sorry, but the article did NOT make clear the method used (or if there was any method) for keeping the two pools of opinion, people and scientists, clear of bias on the subject.
I live in Oslo, Norway, and I would claim that even though we also have our share of wooly/wishful thinking, most Norwegians tend to believe what scientists tell them, as opposed to the US where even presidents can boast about making decisions based on their gut feeling, with no factual research.
I am an EE who has been working in the IT business since 1984, but that doesn't mean that I don't try to follow research in other fields, like physics or chemistry.
Living in Norway I know that pretty much all the electricity we use here is based on hydro power, but I realized many years ago that for humanity in general to have a sustainable future we need a lot more research into nuclear power: It comes down to either filling up a fraction of the Sahara with solar cells, or developing better reactors like the Thorium LIFTer. Burning complex hydrocarbons for power generation should be a crime, and not just due to global warming.
I'll admit that I don't like GMOs, but that is mostly due to the way the US patent systems have allowed Monsanto to patent the resulting modified genes. It was really good news when the patent on the breast cancer gene sequence was invalidated, so I do have some hope that the US will try to fix the most glaring problems.
Terje
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
Oh and somehow you're not living in a suburb? Or an area that used to be a suburb but has since sprawled even more? Your "FTFY" makes it sound like you oppose more urban sprawl. Typically hypocritical of you: It was ok for me to buy in the burbs back in the day, so I got mine, but fuck you young'uns who want to start your own families and have your own possessions.
Assholes like you are what hold society back.
He never asked you to start. He asked about how many times they have been RIGHT, but you just ignored that and doubled down on the derp. Typical.
Somebody here gets it!
HEY! HEY! HEY DYWOLF! TOWER TO DYWOLF. COME IN! These guys are shooting holes in your argument. Have you already crashed and burned? Where's your snarky retort? COME IN DYWOLF. OVER.
And this is why I can't stand you [citation needed] people. You're fucking lazy. He told you what you need to find out what YOU want to argue about. He shouldn't have to do all your damned work for ya. If you can't even be assed to do some research to educate yourself then YOU DON'T ACTUALLY CARE. You're arguing for entertainment's sake. There is an internet testical term for that practice: TROLLING
I haven't seen your name posting much so I am assuming you're new here. Serviscope is one of /.'s SJW White Knights. A Paladin of the Pussy, if you will. He will not and cannot change his opinion in this matter. Unlike you and I, he doesn't realize that the two sexes brains DO operate differently! Why not? Because his brain is overloaded with the vaginal pheromones of pussy he'll never get. Men turn into bumbling fools when they are near vagina they believe they have a chance to hump. You rarely see women do this. They do fawn over attractive men in an equally strong and primal way...BUT DIFFERENTLY. Stick to smoking hash and stop feeding this pussy-starved troll.
AH HA! You're not doing so well, S. You are dancing around the argument, and attacking the form of the argument instead of the contents of the argument. Furthermore, you built a straw man- AN ACTUAL STRAW MAN- by suddenly equating the reproductive practices of plants and animals. Plants DO reproduce differently than animals and they DO require opposite sexed plants- or in the case of self pollinators, two different sex organs on the same plant. You're simply spinning in circles trying to detect the direction you smell the pheromones from, Paladin.
captcha: FAILED
Nowhere in the article does it say that 87% of scientist believe that humans are the cause of climate change. It only reports how the average person thinks scientists believe and that is 57%.
Maybe so but in the end the scientific method overcame all of that. That's the beauty of science. There is ultimately no opinion, just reality.
Nope. It's $10,000 of seed, and $100,000 in manual labour picking weeds, or $50,000 in seed (GMO roundup resistant) and $50,000 in Roundup.
The second one is easier and cheaper, and much worse for the consumer and environment. Now what do you pick?
Learn to love Alaska
Mueller was a skeptic in the true sense of the word in that he had is reservations about global warming data but when he researched it he was convinced by the evidence. That's as opposed to the many climate science deniers who like to call themselves skeptics. Most of them are "skeptical" of mainstream climate science but will wholeheartedly accept anything that appears to call it into question with no skepticism at all.
Also, his study failed to adequately account for the heat-island effect, and had trouble getting published for that reason.
I've heard nothing about problems Berkeley Earth had with the heat island effect. As I understand it the reason they had trouble getting some of their early stuff published was because it was just a repeat of stuff that had already been published by others and was therefore redundant.
That's as opposed to the many climate science deniers who like to call themselves skeptics. Most of them are "skeptical" of mainstream climate science but will wholeheartedly accept anything that appears to call it into question with no skepticism at all.
What scientist does that?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
First, come back when you know the difference between herbicide and pesticide.
Secondly, this isn't 1815, it's 2015. In America, we don't clear a 100 acre farm by picking weeds by hand. Maybe at one organic granola farm in the People's Republic of California, but not in the bread basket midwest, or here in Texas.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=about+pes...
Though often misunderstood to refer only to insecticides, the term pesticide also applies to herbicides, fungicides, and various other substances used to control pests.
You come back when you can define pesticide. It's a broad term that includes more than just insecticide. Even worse, you were incorrectly correcting other people.
Learn to love Alaska
What makes you think those two sentences were about scientists?
Most of them are "skeptical" of mainstream climate science but will wholeheartedly accept anything that appears to call it into question with no skepticism at all.
So.......do you also have a name for the people who wholeheartedly accept anything that appears to support it with no skepticism at all?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Dang it, you're right. Now that's the eighth time I've been wrong.
IMHO, a nuclear physicist's opinion of GMO is as useful as a biologist's opinion on nuclear safety.
If you haven't studied a particular issue, you should not allow yourself to have an opinion. Otherwise hubris to the power of Dunning-Kruger.
That's a reference to the climate science deniers in the previous sentence. More specifically someone whose ideology drives them to be "skeptical" of some scientific knowledge but who will uncritically accept something that appears to support their position even though usually they're just misinterpreting what was said. As an example they hear the news that Antarctic sea ice is increasing in extent lately and automatically assume that means it must be getting colder therefore no global warming. They never bother to dig deeper into the scientific research about it.
The real problem is science is for sale. The first questions in a scientist's mind should NOT be "what results do they want?" and "what results will get me more funding?". Unfortunately that is where we are. In a ton of fields like climate, GMOs, vaccines, etc, you get so many contradictory results from different scientists that it is hard to sort out who is correct.
Independent funding for research? Ha, good one. The vast majority comes from governments and corporations who are looking for a result to back their position. To get some product on the market or law passed.
This is a semi-rant by Dr Brown of Duke university. If you want to read a great explanation of why the IPCC models are broken beyond belief there was a great article describing that and all the other problems with climate science this is it. It also can be viewed as problem with science research in general these days.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/06/real-science-debates-are-not-rare/
As to the vaccine there are 2 very serious sides to the issue and here is one you may not agree with but scientists with impeccable credentials disagrees with other scientists and explains why:
- Dr Tetyana Obukhanych, Ph.D. - Natural Immunity and Vaccination
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h66beBrEpk
- Quotes from Simpsonwood and Puerto Rico Conferences (vaccines & metal toxicity)
http://www.autismhelpforyou.com/Simpsonwood_And_Puerto%20%20Rico.htm
- Cochrane Review - Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy adults
http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD001269/vaccines-to-prevent-influenza-in-healthy-adults-
- Dr Lisa Jackson's out of season influenza vaccine research
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/35/2/337.short
- 7 Sins of GMO Scientists
http://www.soilassociation.org/motherearth/viewarticle/articleid/4752/the-pr
- Excellent article on GMO, Media etc
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/01/08/fakethrough-gmos-and-the-capitulation-of-science-journalism/
- Response to critics of GMO study
http://gmoseralini.org
Sure, there are such people. Do you also recognize that there are AGW 'supporters' who uncritically accept everything that supports their opinion? Do you have a term for them, or do you only label people who disagree with you?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
IMHO the problem exist in that scientist know where their funding is coming from and have learned if you rock the boat with a fact that doesn't fit the agenda they can face unjust criticism and defunding. It's the party line thing if you get my meaning and it most definitely does exist.
Remember also that nearly all institutes of higher learning have been playing this funding game a long time and know the rules. You will graduate with the select information and an agenda firmly planted in your brain. It's not all disinformation at all, it's just presented or suppressed from a certain fealty.
Whereas it seems that most public opinion is based on conditioned response and emotion, few on either end of the spectrum use much pure objectivity. Welcome to the all encompassing world politic where facts are often red haired stepchildren.
Of course there are. They like climate science deniers are unscientific ideologues. When I have the opportunity I try to point out their failures as well. The science it what it is and is not subject to political arguments from either side.
I think paycheck corruption in science today is even worse, like with the CAGW promoters.
The evidence is conclusive: human caused global warming is fact.
Sure throughout the history of science there have been lots of conclusive findings that turned out to be wrong. Indeed Paul Ehrlich's research was conclusive that 7 billion people would not be sustainable.
Try and get a grant to prove climate change is not occurring. It is impossible. I guess the grant committee are as dogmatic as you.
So the whole grant process force scientists in a certain direction.
From someone actively involved with trying maintain a federal grant at work, you're simply mistaken on both counts. The federal grant covers the salaries of the people involved with that project. No grant means no project. No project means the jobs go away.
The grant is for renewable terms. WithIN the current term, continued funding is dependant on hitting certain specified targets, as measured by the officials at federal agency making the grant. At renewal time, renewal is 100% at the discretion of the federal officials. They can cancel our team and send the grant money elsewhere at their complete discretion.
I never understood why people completing make stuff up, fabricating it out of whole cloth, and post it as if it were fact. Go ahead AMD do it again, if you must, and when I'm in the office on Monday I'll post the grant documents, "at sole discretion" wording and all, and you'll just look like an utter fool.
All science influenced by bullying tactics, political pressure, greed, and ambition is junk science. Examples are the theory, and I stress THEORY, of evolution, and 50 year westher forecasts...
The difference is that people think they are getting bad information because past experience is a fair predictor of future outcomes, while scientists know that the latest "fact" is just one exception/theory away from being dumped.
Take the nutrition wars of the 70s. Real scientists knew the science wasn't in - nothing was proven experimentally, all the US government had to go on was some seriously flawed statistical analysis. Unfortunately the US government couldn't wait. Lo and behold the fruit of that decision: the most obese nation on earth, with all the nation's that followed their dietary advice only a few steps behind them.
Scientific "facts" should be taken with a beaker of salt. You can only believe a scientist when he says something like: "according to current theories...", or "the data seems to indicate that...", or "prevailing theories tell us that...".
Unfortunately even if the scientist does this the reporter writes it up as "scientist discovers truth" because readers want facts, not fine print disclaimers.
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