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EPA says it will eliminate its scientific research arm

(www.nytimes.com)
260 points anigbrowl | 2 comments | 18 Jul 25 23:00 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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globalview ◴[19 Jul 25 00:46 UTC] No.44611487[source]▶
A lot of comments are rightfully pointing out the destructive nature of this move. But looking at it from another angle, is it possible this is a symptom of a deeper problem?

What if a significant portion of the electorate no longer believes institutions like the EPA are neutral arbiters of science, but instead see them as political actors pushing an agenda? If that belief is widespread, is an action like this seen not as 'destruction', but as 'dismantling a biased system', even if it seems counterproductive to the rest of us?

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consumer451 ◴[19 Jul 25 02:26 UTC] No.44612027[source]▶
> What if a significant portion of the electorate no longer believes institutions like the EPA are neutral arbiters of science, but instead see them as political actors pushing an agenda?

This is clearly the case. The next question is, how did this happen? Did these people come to this conclusion based on their own diligent research, or were they led to this opinion by supremely funded vested interests that influence every branch of our society?

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reliabilityguy ◴[19 Jul 25 16:47 UTC] No.44617064[source]▶
> or were they led to this opinion by supremely funded vested interests that influence every branch of our society?

I hope you realize the irony that this argument applies to both sides of the argument here. In other words, how do you know that your research was done in an unbiased way?

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consumer451 ◴[19 Jul 25 18:28 UTC] No.44618061[source]▶
Being led on a leash, or at least being nudged, by monied interests is not unique to either side of US politics. Do you know who has funded anti-nuclear power propaganda since the 1950s? The same fossil fuel industry involved with the destruction of the EPA.
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1. reliabilityguy ◴[19 Jul 25 19:42 UTC] No.44618681[source]▶
How does your comment answer my question?
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2. consumer451 ◴[19 Jul 25 19:57 UTC] No.44618807[source]▶
The good thing about science is that it doesn’t depend on trusting any one person or institution, it depends on a process designed to catch bias and error.

Scientists don’t just publish opinions. Well, they can, but we generally call these people crackpots. However, in modern times they do financially well on YouTube and podcasts. Scientists test ideas through predictions and experiments, share their data and methods, and other scientists try to reproduce the results. If findings can’t be repeated, they’re usually rejected. Over time, only the most reliable results hold up.

Yes, funding and politics can influence science, on all sides. But the scientific system has: peer review, conflict-of-interest disclosures, reproducibility, and open data. These are not perfect, but they make science far more reliable than all other known systems.

What I believe is a continuation of how we built our modern civilization, since the time of Newton, and earlier. I cannot personally audit all of science, so instead I rely on the scientific method, which is the best system (warts and all) that we have yet found to discover the base truth.