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The anti-science movement.

steddyeddy

In the last few decades we have made extraordinary advances in science. We can treat diseases more effectively, we know more about our evolutionary past and we know more about the world and universe around us.

Despite this there seems to be an increase in what I call anti-science (I'm open to debate on my labelling), Creationism in some countries is flourishing, measles in America is on the rise, NASA and meteorological agencies around the world have to argue the case for man made climate change and we still have the situation where scientists have to argue that science in itself has value and needs to be funded.

Why is there a growing mistrust of science in developed countries? It would be easy to say religion but I don't think religion plays a part in the climate change or vaccination argument.

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Sand

Increasing democratisation of everything from politics to education to culture to economics - there are probably less uneducated, superstitious, fanatical idiots out there. But nobody ever asked them for their opinion before - until the last 40-50 years, the idea of everyone having a valuable opinion that ought to be listened and indulged wasn't taken seriously.

Another aspect of the above is the attack on the very concept of elites in any sphere of life, including science and policy making. Elites throughout history tended to be more liberal, better educated, more cosmopolitan and more rational than the vast majority of people. Again, in the last 40-50 years the idea of elites has been entirely undermined and discredited as has the idea of aspiring to join the elite.

Turtwig

There are varying degrees of scientific literacy. People tend to trust their experiences. Science is very often counter intuitive. Science does have a prior history of abuse. Ultimately, we're a superstitious species who seems obsessed with group mentalities where everyone else bar members of the group is against the group. That was great in the distant past for helping us survive but sociologically it's now holding us back.

Tarzana2

I don't have a huge problem with climate change being questioned. Not because I don't believe in it, but because it's an area that is relatively new and will require long-term study so we are still in the very early stages of investigation.

I believe skepticism is a good thing in science because it ensures that the science is rigorous to disprove those skeptics. (or not, if the science turns out to be shaky) Evolution took a long time to be accepted and this was by the scientific establishment of the day. Any scientist who is confident in their methods and hypotheses has nothing to fear from doubting voices.

bpmurray

Dave0301 wrote: »

I present exhibit A

And exhibit B ... :-)

steddyeddy

Sand wrote: »

Increasing democratisation of everything from politics to education to culture to economics - there are probably less uneducated, superstitious, fanatical idiots out there. But nobody ever asked them for their opinion before - until the last 40-50 years, the idea of everyone having a valuable opinion that ought to be listened and indulged wasn't taken seriously.

Another aspect of the above is the attack on the very concept of elites in any sphere of life, including science and policy making. Elites throughout history tended to be more liberal, better educated, more cosmopolitan and more rational than the vast majority of people. Again, in the last 40-50 years the idea of elites has been entirely undermined and discredited as has the idea of aspiring to join the elite.

I would disagree on the elite thing and to be honest I don't know what your definition of an elite is. Some of those described by some as "elite" Mitt Romney and Palin for example are notoriously thick when it comes to science. I was dismayed to find out the Romney attended Stanford

Tarzana2

steddyeddy wrote: »

I was dismayed to find out the Romney attended Stanford .

If science isn't your major, you can easily be quite ignorant of it whilst being an intelligent person. I know I had an immature, underdeveloped view of science before I started to study it in college. And there are many fields I haven't a clue about because I didn't study them (economics, architecture, philosophy etc. etc.) and simply won't have the time to study them all in my lifetime. Do you know everything about all the subjects?

Tarzana2

Turtwig wrote: »

Science does have a prior history of abuse.

Yeah, I recall attending a very illuminating lecture on scientific fraud in college. Some of the stuff that went on, some of it recent! :eek: And by respected scientists too. And crappy science can end up in peer-reviewed journals too. Science isn't free of politics and ego, it's not always noble.

steddyeddy

Tarzana2 wrote: »

If science isn't your major, you can easily be quite ignorant of it whilst being an intelligent person. I know I had an immature, underdeveloped view of science before I started to study it in college. And there are many fields I haven't a clue about because I didn't study them (economics, architecture, philosophy etc. etc.) and simply won't have the time to study them all in my lifetime. Do you know everything about all the subjects?

No I don't but I I'm not as massively stupid as Romney. I think the American education system has a lot to answer for. There's a massive difference between knowing something about ever subject and being incredibly thick when it comes to coming to conclusions based on facts that are readily available to the public.

I don't say things like this for example

"When you have a fire in an aircraft, there's no place to go, exactly, there's no -- and you can't find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don't open. I don't know why they don't do that. It's a real problem."

Harry Palmr

Speaking ignorance there is story in todays Sunday Times about how the wisdom of Jenny McCarthy (a dizty pin up mother) allied to the finding of the discredited Dr Andrew Wakefield is causing a drop in immunisation rates in the States with the inevitable forthcoming consequences.

Turtwig

There's far too much made of "publishing". As a result journals are often saturated with shtye.

steddyeddy

Misuse of science and scientific fraud is very different from denying scientifically established facts.

steddyeddy

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Speaking ignorance there is story in todays Sunday Times about how the wisdom of Jenny McCarthy (a dizty pin up mother) allied to the finding of the discredited Dr Andrew Wakefield is causing a drop in immunisation rates in the States with the inevitable forthcoming consequences.

Yep stuff like that makes me wonder. Why do they want to believe this stuff?

shruikan2553

Im not sure if its a new thing but everyone seems to think that their opinion is to be as respected as others. We end up in a situation where a debate is being broadcast and we can have someone arguing 1+1=2 against another person saying 1+1=potato.

The former can have all the logic and evidence in the world but the later can just say its what they think and all your evidence is wrong and if you dont respect it you are being intolerant, close minded or trying to remove their freedom of speech. They can be free to say whatever stupid ideas they have but by treating them as serious we give some sort of credibility.

Sand

steddyeddy wrote: »

I would disagree on the elite thing and to be honest I don't know what your definition of an elite is. Some of those described by some as "elite" Mitt Romney and Palin for example are notoriously thick when it comes to science. I was dismayed to find out the Romney attended Stanford .

My definition of an elite is a recognised authority in any sphere who tells the rest of society what is good, what people *ought* to like, and is considered qualified to do so by the rest of society. I.E. A scientist in a scientific field for example The inverse of democratisation where its a given that if its popular, its good. I.E. a talking head idiot for the anti-vaccination movement for example.

I wouldn't necessarily have included Mitt Romney as I believe he is a symptom of the democratisation of politics, but I'd point out that politicians in general are absolutely terrified of appearing smarter than the average voter. American politicians in general have tried to hone a folksy, good ol boy, homespun wisdom where the voter is always right rather trying to be seen as intelligent - that can be threatening to voters. Mitt Romney may be an idiot, or he may simply find it politically advantageous to be seen as dim. Better that than than an up himself Stanford college boy.

Manach

Rather odd by atheists who continuous flog the horse of Region and Science being mutually opposed. The latter at its core is about the physical world while the latter is about the meta-physical. As the great science writer SJ Gould stated, these magisteriums are complementary and not hostile.

steddyeddy

Sand wrote: »

My definition of an elite is a recognised authority in any sphere who tells the rest of society what is good, what people *ought* to like, and is considered qualified to do so by the rest of society. The inverse of democratisation where its a given that if its popular, its good.

Well in terms of science the scientists are elite. I think they should be more media friendly IMHO. They can be the only recognised authority in science.

I wouldn't necessarily have included Mitt Romney as I believe he is a symptom of the democratisation of politics, but I'd point out that politicians in general are absolutely terrified of appearing smarter than the average voter. American politicians in general have tried to hone a folksy, good ol boy, homespun wisdom where the voter is always right rather trying to be seen as intelligent - that can be threatening to voters. Mitt Romney may be an idiot, or he may simply find it politically advantageous to be seen as dim. Better that than than an up himself Stanford college boy.

Oh yea I would certainly think they are smarter than they let on. If only slightly. I also think that Palin doesn't believe half the tea party stuff she spouts.

tritium

I guess there's a few reasons that all add up to greater than the sum of the parts. Some of them (IMHO):

Consensus led politics that becomes a popularity contest. Basically it becomes politically career limiting to dismiss or refute something that is 'popular'. As a result pretty dubious practices or beliefs get far more air time and endorsement than they really should.
People believe the numbers - any numbers . Statistics and data are so important, but people rarely actually check these. As a result it becomes easy to put any particular spin you like and hey, with facebook/ twitter etc., you can send that spin to half the planet.
The 'everyone's opinion is equally valid' and 'lessons from lost antiquity' worldviews. We've become fairly poor at telling anybody that what they're peddling is pure snake oil. In tandem with, as a society we've kind of assumed that some of the older civilisations are so cool that they must have known and lost all these great secrets that we just have to rediscover and unlock! As a result Reiki, Angel readings, Astral projection etc. is often presented as the most reasonable and legitimate thing under the sun
Science just got too damn complicated and too damn accessible! No really! 200 years ago we more of less thought we knew it all and were just smoothing out a few small cracks. It wasn't overly complex and in addition the fact that the only people who really had enough time or education to care deeply were (more than likely) somewhat scientists meant that it had a degree of integrity- basically not everyone could just google every idea under the sun. Fast forward 200 years. Science is complex! We have quantum physics! we have dark matter! Not just that, the basic level of education is much higher, the basic level of access to information is much higher. And I stress basic! You have people who love the sound of words like quantum, quark, singularity but who don't have enough time, learning or inclination to understand them. And when some schyster peddles how quantum physics explains away how esp/ reiki/ divining works, well, that sounds cool so it must be plausible. Its not necessarily that people are easier duped than before, its just easier to try to dupe lots of them and you have a nice flashy toolbox to help!

So basically, a complex world, which can be instantaneously presented to anyone who wants it, being delivered by folks with an agenda to people who are incapable of critically processing that level of complexity. And the bad news is that that trajectory is only going one way.

Tarzana2

I think science can seem quite esoteric to laypeople, even if they are intelligent.

I have a science degree, I did well at it but it wasn't easy. It took a lot of work, of training my mind to understand many different theories. And I'm someone who studied it.

It'd no wonder the general public can find it so bamboozling. A little recognition of this would be helpful, I think.

tritium

Sand wrote: »

My definition of an elite is a recognised authority in any sphere who tells the rest of society what is good, what people *ought* to like, and is considered qualified to do so by the rest of society. I.E. A scientist in a scientific field for example The inverse of democratisation where its a given that if its popular, its good. I.E. a talking head idiot for the anti-vaccination movement for example.

I wouldn't necessarily have included Mitt Romney as I believe he is a symptom of the democratisation of politics, but I'd point out that politicians in general are absolutely terrified of appearing smarter than the average voter. American politicians in general have tried to hone a folksy, good ol boy, homespun wisdom where the voter is always right rather trying to be seen as intelligent - that can be threatening to voters. Mitt Romney may be an idiot, or he may simply find it politically advantageous to be seen as dim. Better that than than an up himself Stanford college boy.

Yeah that's a fairly general problem. Its basically political suicide to appear brighter than the herd. People like to think that their politicians are 'one of them'. Popularity contests rarely give the best candidate, only the most likeable candidate

[Deleted User]

steddyeddy wrote: »

Why is there a growing mistrust of science in developed countries? It would be easy to say religion but I don't think religion plays a part in the climate change or vaccination argument.

I am stealing from another poster here - but I have seen it suggested that a lot of the anti science mentality is rooted in a refusal to accept we are animals - albeit animals with a few unique characteristics in our world.

With our civilisation and our manners and our clothes and much more we hide the fact from ourselves that we are animals. We like to see ourselves as a species as being something more - something special. And a quick look in recent threads on things like Breast Feeding will show you how unerved people get by any display of anything which reminds us of our animal origins.

And while the likes of Brian Cox can talk wonderfully about how our science can show us the specialness we DO have and our place of importance in the universe as perhaps even being unique in being conscious - science is also a nail in the coffin of the idea we are anything as special as many of us want to believe.

And I feel much anti science rhetoric is grounded heavily in this.

McDermotX

UCDVet

Manach wrote: »

Rather odd by atheists who continuous flog the horse of Region and Science being mutually opposed. The latter at its core is about the physical world while the latter is about the meta-physical. As the great science writer SJ Gould stated, these magisteriums are complementary and not hostile.

In theory maybe. But as long as religions insist upon literal interpretations of texts written thousands of years ago, well, it's easy to understand where they are coming from.

Nevermind the countless times an organized religion has flat-out disagreed with science and was willing to imprison/kick out/kill people who continued to research or publish findings that disagreed with them.

'Hey - we haven't murdered any scientists in a while, so we're cool' is kind of a hard thing for some people to accept.

Even today, for just about any major religion, you can find some pretty strong opposition to either generally accepted scientific facts or new research.

Robbo

hfallada wrote: »

I think the problem lies with the internet. Any idiot can write a blog and people will believe it. There is thousands of sites against vaccines, etc. But even when the smallpox vaccine was introduced, people were against it. Now smallpox is completely gone

I dont think there is a rise in anti-science. But more people hear about it, as its more acceptable.

I can't remember where I saw it but recently there was one of these mental-midget autodidacts all over the media in the States declaring herself an expert on vaccines despite no actual training or qualifications in science or medicine. But she was allowed to call herself an expert because "she'd spend over 1,000 hours researching the matter".

Someone replied, does that make James Bond a gynaecologist?

Duggy747

shruikan2553 wrote: »

The former can have all the logic and evidence in the world but the later can just say its what they think and all your evidence is wrong and if you dont respect it you are being intolerant, close minded or trying to remove their freedom of speech. They can be free to say whatever stupid ideas they have but by treating them as serious we give some sort of credibility.

This, it's so infuriating talking to someone when they use this angle to get themselves out of a corner when evidence is stacked up against them.

"Well, that's just my opinion on the matter" or "That's not fact, that's just your / some scientist's opinion!"

I'd much prefer someone to fight their side than to trout out these horseshít phrases.

You have the likes of Oprah allowing platforms for the likes of Jenny McCarthy, Dr. Oz and Deepak Chopra to exist where they get free reign to pollute scientific terminology and confuse people's perception of what qualifies as science.

Then you have a popular site like NaturalNews putting itself out as an authority on scientific matters, being vehemently against established science and medicine....................while peddling outrageous cures in it's advertisements without a hint of irony (Matrix transmitter that heals you through your speakers for a bargain at $40).

It's then no wonder you have the likes of Alex Jones associated with NN as he spouts his own anti-authority, anti-vaccines, etc, bullshít on both that site and his own while also peddling Male vitality supplements to help fight against the war of oestrogen on masculinity.

ScumLord

I think there's certainly a trust issue between people and politics and that politics see's science as a tool that they can use to get across particular agendas. Not as a way of getting and implementing knowledge. I don't think people really distrust science, they trust it enough to have their houses full of technology and to run to a hospital at the first sign of trouble.

Our country (well most democratic countries) are basically running around like headless chickens, the people are technically in charge in a republic but what training do we get to carry out this job? Even if we had the training what chance have we to get involved with our job taking up so much of our time? Part of the reason I have no interest in getting involved in protest groups is because I don't see the point in protesting if you're not championing an alternative. There's no plan for reconciliation, it's just a two sided argument where one side must win and one side must lose and no good will come from either outcome.

I think people will always mistrust the political system (and everything associated with it) as long as we're kept ignorant of it. I think they need to come up with a way of changing the education system so we get the critical thinking talked about in the thread, we understand the makeup of our government and are given opportunities to get involved to fix local problems. I think it's beyond this generation to fix it, our only hope is educating the next generation with the right tools for the modern world.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

magma69

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Have you a link for that? That doesn't sound correct to me.

Maximus Alexander

Zamboni wrote: »

Because the majority of the human species are fcuktards.

/thread

iDave

This website is all kinds of pathetic

http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/cms/

Permabear

This post has been deleted.