Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

(reason.com)

473 points Bostonian | 1 comments | 18 Nov 24 22:04 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

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refurb ◴[19 Nov 24 00:14 UTC] No.42178748[source]▶

Yikes, quite the scathing article and example of a the politicization of science.

“Trust the science” has always bothered me for two reasons: 1) science is frequently not black and white and anyone who has done hard science research knows there are plenty of competing opinions among scientists and 2) while scientific facts are facts, we still need to decide on how to act on those facts and that decision making process is most certainly political and subjective in nature.

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senderista ◴[19 Nov 24 00:20 UTC] No.42178808[source]▶

>>42178748 #

"Trust the science" is the very antithesis of the scientific spirit. The essence of science is to distrust authority and received wisdom. If you treat scientists as some sort of infallible priesthood then you've missed the whole point of science.

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1. itishappy ◴[19 Nov 24 00:59 UTC] No.42179084[source]▶

>>42178808 #

Somewhat disagree. Science requires trust. In fact, it's the process for building that trust up from nothing. Are you friend or foe? I'm going to assume one but watch you closely until I have enough evidence to trust you. Hurray, that's science!

I totally agree that the phrase is often misused to mean "trust my favorite authority figure" or "trust the status quo," which is distinctly unscientific. Good news though, if we're willing to actually do the work (the hard part) trust in science is what allows us to change the status quo!

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