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Scientific American's departing editor and the politicization of science

(reason.com)
490 points Bostonian | 1 comments | 18 Nov 24 22:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.2s | 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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1. nickpsecurity ◴[19 Nov 24 05:13 UTC] No.42180264[source]▶
Scientific facts aren’t facts. Empiricism only tells you when you are wrong or have enough data to believe something for now. At any point, something we believe can be proven wrong.

To even get there requires independent, skeptical, peer review. That often doesn’t happen. It’s questionable how many scientific facts are even science. Much less factual.