Scientists still know more than you do

What compells people to claim they know more than scientists on a specific issue that is accepted as a theorem? I know motivations vary widely as no two people are the same, but I wish to know what is the most prevalent factor amongst people from accepting evolution, global warming or that grey wolves are not endangered.

I would say faith, but most "traditional" people here who seek my disappearence if I claimed anything so vile, so what underlying factors do you find most likely?

edited 5th May '11 6:07:19 AM by Mullerornis

A single phrase renders Christianity a delusional cult.

Scientific Method states that everything can be improved upon. If no one questions something, then we might remain ignorant of something that might otherwise be obvious. Even when dealing with a strawman fundamentalist, he or she might bring up something that is legitimate and then you should take a deeper look at things.

Also, do scientists know the meaning of life?

The thing about making witty signature lines is that it first needs to actually be witty.

"Meaning" is subjective.

Scientists know more than you do on the specific subjects that they have studied. Most of the time, at least.

But despite what some of them seem to think (I am looking at you, James Watson), this does not automatically translate in deep, all-encompassing wisdom concerning matters that they have not studied.

Doubly so if the topic at hand falls outside of the scope of the scientific method.

I should know, I am a scientist myself.*

Therefore: either I am right, and scientists' opinions are not always worthwhile when they discuss subjects outside their specialty, or I am wrong, and thus I am a proof of this very statement.

QED.

edited 5th May '11 6:39:15 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

I am a scientist and I say that you should never trust what is reported as being said by scientists until you've seen their methodology. Generally, the stuff that makes it into the press tends to be the worst kind of junk science.

Too true.

A few years ago, one of the major newspapers of my country published a page-length article about some unknown person who had allegedly proved the fifth postulate of Euclid from the first four.*

Cue angry letters of mathematicians and a retraction, of course, but still, that was a monic fail*

if I ever saw one.

edited 5th May '11 6:52:01 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

True, anything related to weight loss anymore has a bad tendency to be faulty or poorly done. Seriously, it's like some scientists exist just so a commercial can say "Four out of five scientists (or some equivalent) recommend X".

edited 5th May '11 6:46:18 AM by Usht

The thing about making witty signature lines is that it first needs to actually be witty.

Reminds me of this one "study" they were harping on in prevention magazine on some herb that supposedly helped "prevent hyperglycemia." I actually managed to find the actual "study."

It was about three paragraphs describing how two guys from some African country injected a dozen diabetic mice intravenously with tea made from the herb, and then tested their blood sugar levels on an over-the-counter meter made for humans. Their blood sugar levels averaged ten points less than the "control" which was fed with pure sucrose, thus "proving" the magazine's point.

OP: Because scientific theories are falsifiable by nature. They can always be disproven or improved because you are supposed to construct them so that they can always be tested.

"Why don't you write books people can read?"-Nora Joyce, to her husband James

Never mind, this post was dumb, carry on.

edited 5th May '11 7:29:26 AM by Myrmidon

Kill all math nerds

Edited out.

edited 5th May '11 7:29:49 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

It's partly that scientific community really, really sucks at persuasion. Mostly central-route persuasive technique for a subject most people don't really know a lot about? Of course people are skeptical.

As for the global warming thing: most people don't react very well to the notion that the global climate's going to hell in a handbasket, that they're partially to blame, and that most attempts at fixing this problem will involve a shit-ton of effort for them and everyone they know. It's generally a very, very sucky situation, and sometimes the only way people feel like they deal with a situation that sucks so royally is to plug their ears and scream, "I'M NOT LISTENING! LA LA LA LA LA LA LA..."

"If there's a hole, it's a man's job to thrust into it!" — Ryoma Nagare, New Getter Robo

First rule is this:

Results that are not accompanied by a methodology are meaningless.

Also, half of the alcohol bought in Scotland is consumed.

By extension, all results from a methodology that are not repeatable are not useful or likely even true. As much as I love the Mythbusters, they have a tendency to fall very short... along with the science deployed by a few too many companies.

The thing about making witty signature lines is that it first needs to actually be witty.

For a given definition of repeatable. Destructive tests can only be replicated.

The problem with this is that, unless you are a trained scientist in that specific field of the paper or at least in a closely related one, you just do not have a basic competence necessary to understand the methodology and its potential pitfalls.

If you gave me, let's say, a molecular biology research paper and told me to review it, you would get back something completely worthless — my understanding of the subject is basically nonexistent, so how am I even supposed to find out whether the authors made any errors?

A better way to go about it, I think, would be to ask for an expert opinion from someone, unrelated to the authors of the study, who has been trained on that very subject.

edited 5th May '11 10:02:09 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

It depends on the issue.
My moral is basically that if you do not explain yourself, you are automatically wrong, and hence should not be listened to. This applies to anthing.
Now.... sceptism in itself is a good thing, you MUST distrust people you trust, otherwise at some point there will be abuse and... errors causing abuse.

A guy called dvorak is tired. Tired of humanity not wanting to change to improve itself. Quite the sad tale.

it's because

A) Scientists have been wrong B) Scientists have been paid to lie C) What is a scientist anyway? Draw a picture of one!

It's still possible to get your flags set off. People can and do bullshit experiments to try and legitimize a desired result, hype something up, etc.

There is also such a thing as disagreement between scientists.

"Why don't you write books people can read?"-Nora Joyce, to her husband James

Which pretty much defines the field of theoretic mathematics if my math professor is to be believed. While in retrospect, everything is concrete, on the frontier, everyone's arguing about what's actually right, what's not, poking holes in other people's proofs, and some are even going backwards in time and trying to poke holes in the logic of the earliest mathematicians. That field is nothing but scientists arguing with each other.

The thing about making witty signature lines is that it first needs to actually be witty.

You can still spot elementary mistakes of the kind that make it into studies reported in the press.

If the methodology isn't there for review then the results must be assumed to be biased.

Well, yes.

But there is plenty of space for not-so-elementary mistakes too.

Furthermore, it would be unfeasible to ask the press to report the methodologies used in all the research that they mention: in the vast majority of the cases, most of the readers would not be able to understand much of them anyway.

What I would like the press to do would be to at least ask a couple of people in some appropriate research departments whether the work they want to talk about looks reasonably well-made.

Most researchers would be all too happy to oblige, because hey, free publicity; and the newspapers, on the other hand, would get some free fact-checking, and maybe a quote or two, from someone who has some sort of clue about the topic at hand.

edited 5th May '11 11:31:29 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

They can still offer enough information that those who are interested can look up the methodology for themselves. I mean, if it's reliable it ought to be publishable.

Space in a newspaper is a limited. Plus, if you put information on an article that most readers won't understand, you will annoy the hell out of them — my little brother works as a journalist, and he really has to strive to make his pieces understandable for even the least informed, most attention-span-deprived people ever.

At most, they might write the name of the original scientific paper somewhere; but in the case of short pieces, even just that would take up valuable space and turn people off the newspaper.

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.