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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: 0.933s | 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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tekla ◴[19 Nov 24 00:54 UTC] No.42179047[source]▶
Anyone who unironically says “Trust the science” automatically tells me that they are probably not an informed person.

I trust that most research is done in good faith and at least some of it is useful. Saying 'Trust the science' might as well be saying 'Trust in God'

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1. ryanjshaw ◴[19 Nov 24 15:20 UTC] No.42184382[source]▶
The other issue is that science has nothing to say about livelihoods and personal freedom - there's no "Lockdown Science". Those were political decisions, ie. opinions disguised as science to shutdown dissent.