UK Science Adviser Beddington goes to war against bad science

Whatever your approach to the issue, one thing is clear... more attention needs to be drawn to it. Science is a rare refuge of truth in our modern society full of bullshit, and that alone is underappreciated.

edited 15th Feb '11 8:37:50 PM by neoYTPism

Except that "gross intolerance" isnt the best way to oppose any of those things. The one thing you dont want to do is force destructive modes of thought underground. Racism, Homophobia, and psuedo-science are all best dealth with by means of patient, well reasoned opposition, public education, and clear legal standards regarding what is and what isnt permissible in public places or in the context of conducting business. No workplace harrassment, discrimination against protected groups, or fraudulent claims. Giving people the cold shoulder or verbally aggressing against them wont change anyone's mind and wont protect vulnerable populations from exploitation or harrassment.

This.

Additionally, the way the articles in the OP are phrased appears to me to suggest treating bad science the same way as we treat immorality, a suggestion which I find disturbing.

Well peddling fake medical cures is highly immoral. In some cases, people will die because of your lies.

True. But if that's the main intent, he should be calling for treating dishonesty or fraud with intolerance, not "bad science", which could mean a lot of things.

Wait, this is going to be more than just rhetoric somehow?

Obviously not. I'm just saying, the way it's worded rubs me the wrong way.

edited 15th Feb '11 9:26:29 PM by BobbyG

I'm not sure what he's trying to get people to do honestly.

He's trying to get scientists to dogpile journalists, politicians, and other public personalities whenever they insert pseudoscience into their articles and speeches, rather than just rolling their eyes and going “Jeez, what a dumb story. That's Somebody Else's Problem though, I mean, idiots will be idiots!”.

How precisely is my question. Write an angry blog entry about it?

I think this is a good thing (although, the wording is a little odd. Surely something is only 'gross' if it's inappropriate?).

It always amazes me how people can still believe in pseudo-sciences these days.

Racism, Homophobia, and psuedo-science are all best dealth with by means of patient, well reasoned opposition, public education, and clear legal standards regarding what is and what isnt permissible in public places or in the context of conducting business. No workplace harrassment, discrimination against protected groups, or fraudulent claims. Giving people the cold shoulder or verbally aggressing against them wont change anyone's mind and wont protect vulnerable populations from exploitation or harrassment.

The best example so far of a successful approach to pseudo-science is the response of the scientific community to the "Bell-Curve" claims a few years ago. Claims of racial superiority re-surface every decade or so, and they always get buried under a mountain of counter-evidence. The same can basically be said about "intelligent design". You cant prevent everyone from decieving themselves if they refuse to listen to reason, but really I think the approach we use is the most effective in the long run.

But those are examples of "gross intolerance"; a refusal to accept those ideas as valid, and constantly challenging them.

Challenging isn't the same thing as stigmatizing.

To whom are you replying? The quotations in the original article talk about challenging "nonsense.

Perhaps if there was a stigma against wilful ignorance, there wouldn't be so much "bad science" in the media.

edited 16th Feb '11 1:42:14 AM by AndrewGPaul

Nah, most writers are the idiots who did badly in real subjects like science anyway, nothing will change that.

Gross intolerance has more to do with stigmatizing than with confronting.

edited 16th Feb '11 1:45:08 AM by Deboss

Aye, and most scientists are idiots who did badly at - or had no patience with - real subjects like literature. But I don't think you're quite right: that hasn't always been the case, and I think it one of the tragedies of the latter half of the 20th century that it is now.

But regardless, one can be bad at science without publishing bad science. The former is ignorance resulting from a lack of aptitude, the latter is ignorance resulting from unscientific methodology. A person who is bad at science may not feel comfortable presenting any opinion as scientific; a person using bad science will, but it won't be.

I can certainly see why one might be tempted to stigmatise the presentation of unscientific information as accurate scientific information, but in practice I think that could end up encouraging the rejection of new ideas and potentially stifle progress.

edited 16th Feb '11 2:32:56 AM by BobbyG

My preference would be to stigmatize people that write technology articles that don't know what they're talking about or dress it up with very broad terms. First, no journalist is ever allowed to use the word "scientist" again, they have to look up the actual field and use it.

: To challange it, is to give it a fair chance to prove that it works, or that it at the least have some effect.
Placebo is proved, akupunktur and massage is also proven. Herb medicine is proven, except that nobody has sat down and done a proper catalogization of it.
Basically: He wants a stop to the ridicule.

"Gross intolerance has more to do with stigmatizing than with confronting. "

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that, then.

"My preference would be to stigmatize people that write technology articles that don't know what they're talking about or dress it up with very broad terms."

That was what I was getting at. Not knowing something is acceptable. Deliberately refusing to know something is a different matter.

Also on the list of "words journalists are not allowed to use in reference to science" are: researchers, revolutionize, future, high tech, strides. None of that shit please.

Actually, if people stopped accepting "journalist" as a qualification, and hired people with relevant qualifications as writers, that would help. Same goes for any other specialist area - politics, foreign affairs, ...

Placebo is proved, akupunktur and massage is also proven. Herb medicine is proven, except that nobody has sat down and done a proper catalogization of it.

The placebo effect has been proven. Acupuncture has been proven to not work better than placebo (by comparing effects of "legitimate" acupuncture to sticking needles in the "wrong" places and telling the patients that it's acupuncture.) Herbal medicines which have been proven to work better than placebo do not receive the label of "alternative medicine," anything which does has not passed proper clinical tests (which is not to say it hasn't received them.)

If scientists were more vocal in confronting pseudoscience, you would probably have known those things already.

One of the common misconceptions about herbal medicine is that medical researchers don't have the patience or respect for folk knowledge to go around investigating all those plants, and so restrict themselves to working with chemicals, ignoring a huge potential resource of curative products. In fact, one of the primary ways we get drugs is by investigating plants reputed to have medicinal effects, and finding out if the chemicals in them actually do anything. If they do, we use those. Any herbal medicine labeled as "alternative" has probably been tested, but failed to pass this process.

edited 16th Feb '11 7:11:17 AM by Desertopa

I can certainly see why one might be tempted to stigmatise the presentation of unscientific information as accurate scientific information, but in practice I think that could end up encouraging the rejection of new ideas and potentially stifle progress.

The whole point of scientific peer review is to weed out bad science before it ever hits the public eye. You can be a bad scientist, but it's likely that your work will never see the light of day. Unless you go rogue, in which case your ideas should be given exactly as much credence as some wacko who walked in off the street.

It's frankly embarassing how many people still believe in pseudoscience in this day and age.

Since when has journalism paid attention to peer review? If you're suggesting that journalists aren't allowed to talk about things that haven't been peer reviewed, you have my support.

They can talk, but they should not be allowed to introduce them with the same degree of credence as they give peer-reviewed science.

I'm still curious as to how you're supposed to implement it. You're not planning to steal my plan of throwing dog feces at them are you?