Is Everyone Off Attending the Inauguration Today?

[Chris Coad]

originally posted by Jay Miller:

originally posted by VLM:

originally posted by MLipton:


Well, the outgoing administration was far more hostile to science than just neglect. In addition to those cases of suppression and modification of research results that the article cites, there was also the unprecedented politicization of the peer review process in various scientific agencies. Political appointees to NIH study sections was unique to Bush II, for instance. However, it would be a mistake IMO to put the blame on Conservatism broadly, as it really reflects the hostility to science that is endemic to the Religious Right.

No, I think it is endemic to most of America.

So I'm flipping through the tv channels while on the elliptical trainer (only place I watch tv) and spend some time watching KyleXY. I was somewhat horrified to hear this (paraphrased) exchange:

"So you don't think we can trust them?"
"No, they're scientists after all."
"Good point."

I was saying something similar to Lisa just the other day. Scientists, with all their smartypants facts and numbers and I'm right and you can't argue with me because I have DATA! Right here! That you will NEVER UNDERSTAND! talk, are totes people to be feared and mistrusted.

She didn't agree. I begin to suspect she has, you know, leanings. I will watch her closely.

 

[MLipton]

originally posted by Chris Coad:

So I'm flipping through the tv channels while on the elliptical trainer (only place I watch tv) and spend some time watching KyleXY. I was somewhat horrified to hear this (paraphrased) exchange:

"So you don't think we can trust them?"
"No, they're scientists after all."
"Good point."

I was saying something similar to Lisa just the other day. Scientists, with all their smartypants facts and numbers and I'm right and you can't argue with me because I have DATA! Right here! That you will NEVER UNDERSTAND! talk, are totes people to be feared and mistrusted.

To be serious for a moment (a rarity here, I realize), scientists themselves have much to answer for in the loss of public trust in science: DDT, dioxins, thalidomide, PCBs, the atomic bomb, Minamata, DES, et al. Regardless of the fact that the tragedies associated with the chemicals arise largely from their indiscriminate use rather than their intrinsic badness (except for thalidomide, which is a truly tragic story), the public has come to regard science as a double-edged sword, providing the source to many modern ills (pollution, cancer, global warming) as well as some public good. That suspicion, coupled with a shrinking scientific literacy rate, has led to the growing hostility I noted earlier.

I don't subscibe to VLM's broad-based indictment of America as anti-science. After all, it was those same Americans who took the technological lead in the mid-twentieth century, was it not? However, the declining educational standards in this country have given rise to a dangerous tide of hostility to science and technology.

Mark Lipton

 

[Rahsaan]

originally posted by MLipton:
I don't subscibe to VLM's broad-based indictment of America as anti-science. After all, it was those same Americans who took the technological lead in the mid-twentieth century, was it not?

I think that Americans, like all people, trust technology a lot more than they trust scientists.

Televisions, computers, IPhones -> All good.
Smart people with numbers and strange words -> Suspicious.

That said, I don't think 'scientists' as a category should be any more trustworthy than 'politicians' 'lawyers' or 'priests'. We're all human and we all make mistakes. Some of which are more costly than others..

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

originally posted by MLipton:

originally posted by Chris Coad:

So I'm flipping through the tv channels while on the elliptical trainer (only place I watch tv) and spend some time watching KyleXY. I was somewhat horrified to hear this (paraphrased) exchange:

"So you don't think we can trust them?"
"No, they're scientists after all."
"Good point."

I was saying something similar to Lisa just the other day. Scientists, with all their smartypants facts and numbers and I'm right and you can't argue with me because I have DATA! Right here! That you will NEVER UNDERSTAND! talk, are totes people to be feared and mistrusted.

To be serious for a moment (a rarity here, I realize), scientists themselves have much to answer for in the loss of public trust in science: DDT, dioxins, thalidomide, PCBs, the atomic bomb, Minamata, DES, et al. Regardless of the fact that the tragedies associated with the chemicals arise largely from their indiscriminate use rather than their intrinsic badness (except for thalidomide, which is a truly tragic story), the public has come to regard science as a double-edged sword, providing the source to many modern ills (pollution, cancer, global warming) as well as some public good. That suspicion, coupled with a shrinking scientific literacy rate, has led to the growing hostility I noted earlier.

I don't subscibe to VLM's broad-based indictment of America as anti-science. After all, it was those same Americans who took the technological lead in the mid-twentieth century, was it not? However, the declining educational standards in this country have given rise to a dangerous tide of hostility to science and technology.

Mark Lipton

Your argument has as a consequence that scientists should not be trusted to decide on policy actions based on their science. This shouldn't be controversial; it comes under the "not my bailiwick" bailiwick. Some scientists will have good ideas about public policy, some not, and in neither case because they are scientists.

It doesn't have as a consequence that science (maybe as opposed to individual scientists) shouldn't be attended to when you are trying to figure out what Wittgenstein calls all that is the case.

 

[Scott Kraft]

So there is some actual data on this very question. Gallup surveys, for instance, show year in year out that Engineers, Doctors, Pharmacists, and Nurses are perceived as highly ethical. PEW's polls regularly show that Americans view science advances as the greatest achievements made in the past century.

Basically, the data says America is not anti-science. While we are a boisterous democracy with a lot of varying opinions (many negative), we're much more likely to be anti-lawyer, anti-politician, anti-advertising, even anti-journalism than anti-science.

In other words you're all dumb fucks who didn't bother to check the facts before talking.

 

[Thor]

I don't subscibe to VLM's broad-based indictment of America as anti-science.

"Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals."

 

[Jay Miller]

originally posted by Bob Semon:

And what about the the strict constructionist screwing up the oath of office? After all, it's right there in the Constitution. Word for word.

Loading…

www.xkcd.com

 

[SFJoe]

Although science certainly has some use in kicking Burkean prejudices in the keister.

 

[MLipton]

originally posted by Thor:

I don't subscibe to VLM's broad-based indictment of America as anti-science.

"Human beings, as we know them, developed from earlier species of animals."

Yes, I saw that study when it was released and indeed it is appalling. However, ignorance != hostility, which was my point.

Mark Lipton

p.s. Your HTML did wacko bad things to the website as rendered in Firefox.

 

[Chris Coad]

originally posted by Jay Miller:

originally posted by Bob Semon:

And what about the the strict constructionist screwing up the oath of office? After all, it's right there in the Constitution. Word for word.

Loading…

www.xkcd.com

Semi-related, intelligence curve.

 

[Thor]

ignorance != hostility

"When we just saw that man, I think it was [P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed that was horrifying beyond words, and thats where science in my opinion, this is just an opinion thats where science leads you," - Ben Stein.

p.s. Your HTML did wacko bad things to the website as rendered in Firefox.

I can't replicate that; it looks fine to me in FF. It was only an img tag, anyway. Nothing non-standard that should have caused problems.

 

[MLipton]

originally posted by Thor:

ignorance != hostility

"When we just saw that man, I think it was [P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed that was horrifying beyond words, and thats where science in my opinion, this is just an opinion thats where science leads you," - Ben Stein.

I rest my case. And do we need any more confirmation that economics is indeed the "dismal science"?

p.s. Your HTML did wacko bad things to the website as rendered in Firefox.

I can't replicate that; it looks fine to me in FF. It was only an img tag, anyway. Nothing non-standard that should have caused problems.[/quote]

Yeah, nothing fuX0red with the HTML; maybe it is just the size of the image, but I get a big gray rectangle just below your image that obliterates most of Jay's post. Details in case you're interested: FF 2.0.0.20 running under Mac OS 10.2.8. It's probably a case of older s/w not correctly grokking something in your IMG tag.

Mark Lipton

 

[Chris Coad]

originally posted by MLipton:

originally posted by Thor:

ignorance != hostility

"When we just saw that man, I think it was [P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed that was horrifying beyond words, and thats where science in my opinion, this is just an opinion thats where science leads you," - Ben Stein.

I rest my case. And do we need any more confirmation that economics is indeed the "dismal science"?

p.s. Your HTML did wacko bad things to the website as rendered in Firefox.

I can't replicate that; it looks fine to me in FF. It was only an img tag, anyway. Nothing non-standard that should have caused problems.

Yeah, nothing fuX0red with the HTML; maybe it is just the size of the image, but I get a big gray rectangle just below your image that obliterates most of Jay's post. Details in case you're interested: FF 2.0.0.20 running under Mac OS 10.2.8. It's probably a case of older s/w not correctly grokking something in your IMG tag.

Mark Lipton

Getting my HTML fuX0red makes me totes stabby. Epic FAIL!

 

[Scott Kraft]

Antagonism to a particular framing of the Theory of Evolution equals anti-science? It surely indicates the power of the creationist lobby in this country to shape opinion. Construing it to mean that people are hostile to science and scientists seems overreaching.

 

[Thor]

It wasn't really a position paper, I was just posting a graph that seemed relevant.

 

[Scott Kraft]

Never mind.

 

[Steve Edmunds]

You're just trying to make the Scandihoovians look good!

 

[Chris Coad]

originally posted by Thor:
It wasn't really a position paper, I was just posting a graph that seemed relevant.

Hey! No backpedaling!

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

If one is supposed to believe in evolution and natural selection based on the evidence for it, then I suspect most people in the US, and probably most people everywhere, would be more scientific in answering they are not sure, since in fact they don't really know the evidence for the theory. As a way of showing how little people understand the strength of the theory and why they are so vulnerable to pseudo-scientific critiques such as intelligent design, in certain classes, using only the resources of 19th century scientific knowledge (and without appealing to any exploded theories such as blended inheritance or Kelvin's estimation of the age of the earth), much less any reference to religion, I take the position that the evidence for fixism is better than the evidence for evolution. Within about two minutes all but any biology students who happen to be in the class find that they are unable to answer because they only know that everyone has told them that they ought to believe evolution without telling them why. By the way, one could do this to me with any exploded theory of physics or chemistry since I really don't know why the currently accepted theories are accepted and more or less take it on authority when SF Joe tells me something about the chemistry of wine. In other words, the problem with Americans and science is not that they do or don't believe it but that they don't have a clue about why they should or shouldn't.

 

[VLM]

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
In other words, the problem with Americans and science is not that they do or don't believe it but that they don't have a clue about why they should or shouldn't.

In a sense this is a problem with contemporary science. So many things are so complex now that it seems almost impossible for a layman to understand it.

I think vaccines are a good example of this. It is also an area where I have had disagreements with family and friends. It is pretty scary and depressing.