Is Everyone Off Attending the Inauguration Today?

I would be curious to hear more details on what they disagree with, actually. I say this as someone whose own ignorance in the matter could crush many small villages.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
I would be curious to hear more details on what they disagree with, actually. I say this as someone whose own ignorance in the matter could crush many small villages.
Click to expand...

I have family and friends who refuse to fully vaccinate their children. There are many pockets of this around the country. Reasoning goes from, "why do they need them all at once, isn't that overtaxing the system" to "the CDC is in a conspiracy with scientists to suppress studies linking vaccines to autism."

Outside of modern statistics, vaccines were the single greatest human achievement of the 20th century.
 
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.
Click to expand...

Since Chris is accusing me of backpedaling, I suppose I should say that I not only agree with you, I place a lot of the blame for what you say here on my profession. I'm not sure I'd call what's going on willful ignorance, though it sometimes is, but whenever most -- and I mean the vast, vast majority -- of journalists are confronted with data around which to craft a story, they do one of two things. First, they go out and find someone with an opposing opinion and write the story as if they were writing a "X says, but on the other hand Y says" political piece (which is why most journalists these days are not actually practicing journalism, but instead are taking dictation), rather than examining the actual science and what it suggests (if anything), where its uncertainties, errors, and limits are, etc. And then, whether or not they do that first thing, when they write or report the piece they will fail to characterize the science correctly, or over-simplify to the point of rampant inaccuracy. When confronted on this point, their answer is that since none of the readers will understand the actual science, it's important that they write it as if they won't. Since the journalists don't understand the science either, nor can they be bothered to contact an expert to explain it to them (again, if they contact an expert it's to set up opposing quotes around which to build their piece), there's very little hope of any increase in the public's knowledge.

A lot of science is indeed very, very difficult to understand these days. But that's why we need better and better translators standing between it and us, lest we continually fall victim to those wishing to profit from its incomprehensibility. Alas, that Isaac Asimov remains dead.
 
Though science can be enormously complex, isn't it a relief to know that it is peer reviewed and done with a methodology that has been tried and tested? Isn't this enough to make it the only world view to be taken seriously - despite the occasional horrible mistake?
 
originally posted by Thor:
If you've a moment, I'd like to introduce you to the world outside academia.
Click to expand...

What do you mean?

Newspapers, movies, job promotions, marketing campaigns, legislation, etc, etc, everything is 'reviewed' as some point by a 'peer' of the initial author. It all depends who that 'peer' is and how rigorous the 'review' process is, both inside and outside of science.

There is plenty of research on the weaknesses and fallacies of 'peer-review' as a concept in science.
 
originally posted by Rahsaan:
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
peer reviewed
Click to expand...

Everything is 'peer reviewed' in every field.

The question is who are the peers and what are they doing when they review.
Click to expand...

Yes, but in my experience, peer review is quite different depending on the subject. In the social science world, you can be held hostage, despite a very good piece of scholarship because of disagreements with reviewers that have nothing to do with the quality of that scholarship (which is what peer review is supposed to do). I've found in the sciences that this is much less likely to happen. Once your laboratory techniques have been established what folks tend to quibble over are discussion sections.

Hopefully MLipton will chime in here.
 
originally posted by Thor:
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.
Click to expand...

Since Chris is accusing me of backpedaling, I suppose I should say that I not only agree with you, I place a lot of the blame for what you say here on my profession. I'm not sure I'd call what's going on willful ignorance, though it sometimes is, but whenever most -- and I mean the vast, vast majority -- of journalists are confronted with data around which to craft a story, they do one of two things. First, they go out and find someone with an opposing opinion and write the story as if they were writing a "X says, but on the other hand Y says" political piece (which is why most journalists these days are not actually practicing journalism, but instead are taking dictation), rather than examining the actual science and what it suggests (if anything), where its uncertainties, errors, and limits are, etc. And then, whether or not they do that first thing, when they write or report the piece they will fail to characterize the science correctly, or over-simplify to the point of rampant inaccuracy. When confronted on this point, their answer is that since none of the readers will understand the actual science, it's important that they write it as if they won't. Since the journalists don't understand the science either, nor can they be bothered to contact an expert to explain it to them (again, if they contact an expert it's to set up opposing quotes around which to build their piece), there's very little hope of any increase in the public's knowledge.

A lot of science is indeed very, very difficult to understand these days. But that's why we need better and better translators standing between it and us, lest we continually fall victim to those wishing to profit from its incomprehensibility. Alas, that Isaac Asimov remains dead.
Click to expand...

Well said. This has been a particular disservice for the most important things like climate change and vaccination, neither of which are in any way controversial. Fringe academics are consulted about the "controversy" while failing to acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of scientists hold supporting views.

It's pretty hard to hold on to views in the face of data. While scientists are human and are susceptible to all manner of human frailty including hubris, narcissism, and greed the very act of doing science counters those baser natures to some extent.

I find it humbling.
 
originally posted by VLM:
originally posted by Rahsaan:
originally posted by Otto Nieminen:
peer reviewed
Click to expand...

Everything is 'peer reviewed' in every field.

The question is who are the peers and what are they doing when they review.
Click to expand...

Yes, but in my experience, peer review is quite different depending on the subject. In the social science world, you can be held hostage, despite a very good piece of scholarship because of disagreements with reviewers that have nothing to do with the quality of that scholarship (which is what peer review is supposed to do). I've found in the sciences that this is much less likely to happen. Once your laboratory techniques have been established what folks tend to quibble over are discussion sections.

Hopefully MLipton will chime in here.
Click to expand...

Don't get me started on peer review, guys. It's got its good and bad sides, to be sure. One of the important features of peer review in the natural sciences is that it's anonymous and that editors have great discretion over selection of reviewers. Having said that, there are major flaws in the system. First and foremost is the change in behavior conferred by anonymity, a phenomenon well documented on the Internet, too. A second problem is self-interest, which manifests itself in several ways: the trashing and delaying of competing research and the "circle jerk" approach in which a small cadre of researchers send each other their papers or proposals to review and always give the thumbs-up. Yet another problem is that it's single blind, and the reputations of the researcher and institution bias the review. At the NIH, another problem with peer review is the use of committees, resulting in a well-recognized problem funding truly innovative research.

Like democracy, the only thing worse than peer review is the alternative.

Mark Lipton
 
The concept of "science" as that field that has absolutely reliable protocols for policing itself and finding the truth inevitably makes us make the best the enemy of the good. Most philosophical explanations of how science arrives at true statements, including the current shibboleths of falsifiability, repeatability, peer review, etc., will break down in the face of some a lot or most actual scientific theories to some extent. This breakdown leads to humanities academics and bozos, for different reasons and with different levels of sophistication, trying to prove that science is just another constructed discourse, or prejudice, or some such thing. This in turn leads VLM to blame theoretical attacks on metaphysical explanations for how true statements get made for leading to every bad thing we used to blame on masturbation (blindness, warts on the palms of one's hands, you know the list). Scientific theories, when they are true, are true not because of how they came about but because they accurately describe some element of the way nature works. We evaluate the likelihood of their being true in numbers of different ways, which doesn't stop us from, upon occasion, being correct in our evaluations. Peer review has so many things wrong with it that it obviously should only reproduce the biases of peers, except that the things right with it sometimes produces the ends that peers share in wanting, whether that end be a money-making movie or a true description of how something in nature works.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
I would be curious to hear more details on what they disagree with, actually. I say this as someone whose own ignorance in the matter could crush many small villages.
Click to expand...
I would like to add myself to your large circle of ignorance. One has to depend on "experts" in many areas of life. Liberal arts type of person, without some BS pertaining to many subjects I'm lost.
 
originally posted by Lou Kessler:
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
I would be curious to hear more details on what they disagree with, actually. I say this as someone whose own ignorance in the matter could crush many small villages.
Click to expand...
I would like to add myself to your large circle of ignorance. One has to depend on "experts" in many areas of life. Liberal arts type of person, without some BS pertaining to many subjects I'm lost.
Click to expand...

If this is in relation to vaccination, in addition to the reasons VLM gave above, there was, and maybe still is, a fairly active anti-vaccination movement based on some research that may show that such vaccinations create a greater likelihood that the child will develop autism. According to the NPR program I heard on this and a story in a newspaper, the research is highly dubious. I am unable to evaluate those claims. I can say that even if one stipulated the likelihoods these stories reported, it would still be a bad argument against vaccination to my mind, but the movement does exist.
 
We live in a county that doesn't add fluoride to the drinking water. The children who live here have a much higher rate of dental caries, compared to children who live where there is fluoride added to the reservoirs. There is a strong movement against fluoride and any additives to the water, maybe the same group who oppose vaccination for children. It is the children who suffer in either case.
 
To jump in here (on the vaccination debate) as an economist, there is a bit of a free-rider problem. If vaccination has side effects on a small percentage of the population and everyone else vaccinates, then it makes sense for me not to get a vaccination. No one else will have the disease and I am certain not to get the side-effect. Unfortunately, if everyone acts like me then no one gets vaccinated and the disease can damage many people.

Also if there is any side-effect then some people will suffer from having taken the vaccine and tell other people that the vaccine is a bad idea. It is hard to tell someone that their bad luck is just a price for being a member of society without some huge compensation. And if there are complex diseases that are not well understood (like autism) that are even casually linked to vaccinations (all children are vaccinated and some become autistic, even without causality) things can get very ugly. But it is hard to say that the people who worry are irrational.

Cole
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Lou Kessler:
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
I would be curious to hear more details on what they disagree with, actually. I say this as someone whose own ignorance in the matter could crush many small villages.
Click to expand...
I would like to add myself to your large circle of ignorance. One has to depend on "experts" in many areas of life. Liberal arts type of person, without some BS pertaining to many subjects I'm lost.
Click to expand...

If this is in relation to vaccination, in addition to the reasons VLM gave above, there was, and maybe still is, a fairly active anti-vaccination movement based on some research that may show that such vaccinations create a greater likelihood that the child will develop autism.
Click to expand...

Assuming for a moment that we can define autism. It is a syndrome not a disease with a discrete cause.

According to the NPR program I heard on this and a story in a newspaper, the research is highly dubious.
Click to expand...

This line of thought has been about as thoroughly debunked as it can be. It persists for reasons that have nothing to do with science but with the willingness of people to believe a 6th rate actress like Jenny McCarthy instead of a serious scientist.

My normal reaction would be to say, fuck 'em but the issue is that non-vaccinated kids pose a PUBLIC health threat. I would be unconcerned if these crazy parents were only hurting their own kids, but they are endangering not only all other members of the non-vaccinated population (some folks cannot be vaccinated due to other immune problems or they are too young to receive certain vaccines) but there is a risk that viruses could mutate to strains where the vaccines we have become ineffective.
 
originally posted by Cole Kendall:
To jump in here (on the vaccination debate) as an economist, there is a bit of a free-rider problem. If vaccination has side effects on a small percentage of the population and everyone else vaccinates, then it makes sense for me not to get a vaccination. No one else will have the disease and I am certain not to get the side-effect. Unfortunately, if everyone acts like me then no one gets vaccinated and the disease can damage many people.

Also if there is any side-effect then some people will suffer from having taken the vaccine and tell other people that the vaccine is a bad idea. It is hard to tell someone that their bad luck is just a price for being a member of society without some huge compensation. And if there are complex diseases that are not well understood (like autism) that are even casually linked to vaccinations (all children are vaccinated and some become autistic, even without causality) things can get very ugly. But it is hard to say that the people who worry are irrational.

Cole
Click to expand...

Well, I agree with everything you say, and the free rider problem is acknowledged. However, if you want to be a member of a society then you have to be part of the herd. This is herd immunity we are talking about, not really individual.

I think we could define the choice to make worrying look both rational and irrational.

If I had children, I would hope that public schools would require all students to have the important vaccinations and if I sent my kids to private school, I would want to be sure that they followed the same policy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top