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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: 0.216s | 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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Symmetry ◴[19 Nov 24 16:52 UTC] No.42185511[source]▶
Generally you should trust science on matters of "is". But on matters of "ought" science only bears indirectly.
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1. slices ◴[19 Nov 24 17:40 UTC] No.42186117[source]▶
ideally, science would be the best available information on "is". When the science is i.e. funded by a tobacco company and regarding the safety of tobacco, we should be skeptical. How much of current science falls in a similar class?