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0 pointspatrick4513y ago0 comments

> It’s potentially damaging to say “most of science is wrong” and just stop there. That’s a misleading framing in my opinion. In order to fix the funding problems, society as a whole needs to have trust in science, to believe that the majority of people doing science are politically impartial and also not wasting money or lining their own pockets, to believe that scientific progress is human progress.

Science is losing the battle for public trust because it wants to simultaneously be an infallible source of truth and this messy, chaotic discipline where we tumble towards an approximate answer. It gets defined as a one or the other when it's convenient.

In the first breath: Oh, X% of all published papers are wrong? No big deal, that's just how science works. Can we have another 100 billion of taxpayer dollars please?

In the second breath: The Science Says vaccines are safe and effective. Take it or get fired.

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dahart3y ago

You’re conflating science and politics and business. Science isn’t firing people, companies are. The science is right, the vaccines are relatively safe and effective. People whine about the mandatory actions, sometimes with good reason, and we could probably handle this better, but ultimately why should you be allowed to spread a disease at work that has an unfortunately high probability of killing people (or even of just causing someone else to be out sick for a week or two)?

The US currently somewhat operates on the principle that companies are allowed to make and enforce their own rules, as long as they’re legal. And there’s a long list of things you must do if you don’t want to get fired, including work forty hours a week, and not be a jerk to your co-workers. Do you think companies should not be allowed to fire people who choose to do things that can hurt the company’s bottom line? Do you want the government to monitor businesses more than it does today?

Science funding is complicated and political, but the high level summary of the situation is that the public funds science right now because that’s what the public wants, because a good chunk of society understands that doing science has proven to be a great investment. It would be a bummer if the public decided not to fund science or education, that sounds like the fastest way for the US to become irrelevant globally.

Anyway, what is the alternative to doing science? Do you like your computer/car/cell phone? Do you want to see technological progress stop? Can you name a better approach to seeking truth than the scientific method? What has ever proven to be more effective than science?