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Why Do Many Reasonable People Doubt Science? (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter CowboysFromHell
- Start date
and hopefully it always will!
tommyboy
Footballguy
today's new science says we have a global cooling process newly discovered. (edited for accuracy)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/30/massive_global_cooling_factor_discovered_ahead_of_paris_climate_talks/
don't know if its true, accurate or scientifically sound, but its kind of interesting.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/30/massive_global_cooling_factor_discovered_ahead_of_paris_climate_talks/
don't know if its true, accurate or scientifically sound, but its kind of interesting.
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It is not saying there is global cooling, but there is a process which was vastly underestimated in the models which in the real world is offsetting the warming due to greenhouse gases and may be the source of the pause in warming of the climate. It is nice to see something published which is not trying to make the data fit the models or explain away the pause as some kind of glitch.
tommyboy
Footballguy
Chadstroma
Footballguy
I am generally skeptical of science for two reasons: 1) The nature of science is that what we know is constantly changing. Science books from a couple of decades ago are useless now. 2) There is a tendancy to forget that and I think we presume to know more than we actually do about many subjects.
This does not mean I reject science. It just means I have a healthy skepticism and don't blindly trust some guy who has a bunch of initials after his name.
This does not mean I reject science. It just means I have a healthy skepticism and don't blindly trust some guy who has a bunch of initials after his name.
bigbottom
Footballguy
RedmondLonghorn
Footballguy
While what is well understood certainly changes over time, let's not go totally crazy with the ridiculous generalizations.
Some science books from a couple decades ago are useless now. Most aren't.
Chadstroma
Footballguy
Never said it was a flaw. However, the constant changing of our understanding of science means that what we "know" today may be wrong tomorrow. I am not anti-science. I just feel that if you actually properly understand the nature of science then you are skeptical of so-called scientific "fact". Pretty much all of the groundbreaking and monumental achievements of science are such because they went against the previous understanding of science and often in the face of tremendous pressure for the person going against establish scientific "fact" or "knowledge".
RedmondLonghorn
Footballguy
Oddly, I have almost never heard an actual scientist use the word "fact". I wonder why that is?
Chadstroma
Footballguy
You would be comfortable with your child learning science from a science book 20 years ago? I wouldn't.
Chadstroma
Footballguy
Because they have a healthy amount of skepticism of current scientific knowledge based on the nature of science as noted above.
RedmondLonghorn
Footballguy
Because what non-scientists call "facts" are more correctly labeled as "theories" or "hypotheses" by actual scientists.
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RedmondLonghorn
Footballguy
Not very much about grade school-, middle school-, or high school-level chemistry, physics, astronomy or health science has changed since 1995. I guess Pluto's status has changed (perhaps more than once, I can't keep up). The current understanding of nutrition has changed quite a bit. What else would be horribly out of date?You would be comfortable with your child learning science from a science book 20 years ago? I wouldn't.
matuski
Footballguy
Phil Elliott
Footballguy
Cjw_55106
Footballguy
The worst part of that whole web page was over 100 elected officials only equates to 3%.
NREC34
Footballguy
32 Counter Pass
Footballguy
Oh, we know why, but if it were explained it would be dismissed by some as liberal media bias.
sublimeone
Footballguy
I don't think many reasonable people doubt science. I think many reasonable people doubt the infallibility of scientific findings. It's sort of the same thing with the medical community. Reasonable people don't doubt medicine, but they doubt the idea that doctors have all the answers to the exclusion of everything else.
Notorious T.R.E.
Showdown!™ Administrator
That's fine, but why do they make up their own, seemingly random, alternative answers?
sublimeone
Footballguy
Well, I can only speak for Christians and most of the Christians I know are educated, thoughtful, reasonable people. I don't know a single Christian who believes the earth is 5,000 years old. I don't know a single person who denies shared genetics between species. I think the differences of opinion are a lot more reasonable than you think.
joffer
Footballguy
depending on the poll you look at, 35%-40% of the U.S adult population rejects evolution and common ancestry.
sublimeone
Footballguy
I think it depends on how you phrase the question. "Evolution" covers a pretty broad spectrum. And once you eliminate really old people and the ignorant I think you'll find very few young earthers out there.
Pretty sure the global warming alarmists are young earthers. They are constantly calling the last 140 years, 'ever'.
Galileo
Footballguy
Of course not. That would be ridiculous. All good Christians know it is 6000 years old.
32 Counter Pass
Footballguy
I am waiting for a reporter to ask Ted Cruz how old he thinks the world is. He has refused to answer when asked in the past.Of course not. That would be ridiculous. All good Christians know it is 6000 years old.
Science books from a couple of decades ago are not useless at all. The best teaching material on physics is still the Feynman Lectures, published in the early 1960s. Other major fields have advanced even more slowly than physics has. And where there have been advances, the advances do not render our previous understanding useless. Consider Einstein's modification of Newtonian mechanics. Newton's laws are still extremely useful. Moreover, when the OP asks why people are skeptical of science, he likely doesn't mean "Why are people skeptical of the advances that have been made in the last few decades?" He's asking, I think, about stuff like the basics of evolutionary biology, which were laid out in 1859 (speaking of books from more than a few decades ago that hold up pretty well).
In any case, I think the bold is a good answer to the OP's question. Most people who are skeptical of a given scientific consensus don't realize how little they actually know about the subject, and how much more other people do know. They don't realize that "Why are there still monkeys?" doesn't qualify as deep insight because they're completely unaware of all the field research and experimental results that have been accumulated on the subject. Scientists tend to be acutely aware of the limits of their own knowledge. (Press releases and media reports of their work usually obscure this point, but the journal articles those media reports are based on are generally full of caveats, hedges, and explicit statements of limited confidence.) Many lay people, on the other hand, in their understanding of scientific issues, are walking examples of the Dunning-Krueger effect.
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Rove!
Footballguy
This seems like as good of a place as any to throw this in
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/20158-global-warming-skeptics-know-more-climate-science-study-shows
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/20158-global-warming-skeptics-know-more-climate-science-study-shows
dickey moe
Fingerpicker
Couldn't have said it better myself.
joffer
Footballguy
Mister CIA
Footballguy
CowboysFromHell
Footballguy
32 Counter Pass
Footballguy
I think you are painting with a pretty broad brush here. But, I believe that even teaching creationism in schools is very dangerous for so many reasons, but this article summarizes my thoughts: http://www.alternet.org/story/152349/why_the_anti-science_creationist_movement_is_so_dangerous
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32 Counter Pass
Footballguy
CowboysFromHell
Footballguy
Mr. Pickles
Footballguy
We never seem to see a lot of people chiming in about how they're skeptical about things like the Standard Model of Particle Physics, Special Relativity, the Kinetic Theory of Gases, or the Casimir effect.
Mister CIA
Footballguy
CowboysFromHell
Footballguy
Because that's obvious blasphemy! Doesn't Saudi Arabia execute non believers of the kinetic theory of gases?
Rove!
Footballguy
Most scientific findings are established by repeatable experimental results. The deviation of the climate models from the actual temperatures should cause a revisitation of the hypothesis.
Rove!
Footballguy
How we broke the climate change debate...one perspective:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/17/how-we-broke-the-climate-change-debates-lessons-learned-for-the-future/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/17/how-we-broke-the-climate-change-debates-lessons-learned-for-the-future/
Your Mother's Twin Sister
Footballguy
Notorious T.R.E.
Showdown!™ Administrator
sublimeone
Footballguy
yeah... all those people being bussed to the polls on election day by the democrat machine are brilliant.
CBusAlex
Footballguy
And how old do you have to be to use that as an excuse anyway? This is stuff that's been out there for over a century.
Clifford
Footballguy
Plus the obvious incongruity of the anti-vaxxers: anti-science, suspicious of authority, but decidedly individualistic and anti-community since they are helping reintroduce diseases that could potentially kill millions of people.
TakiToki
Footballguy
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