Edit: Since there are many comments, I would like to clarify my statement. I meant that you should rather trust scientists, that the earth is round / that there is a human-made climate change, etc. and not listen to some random internet guy, that claims these things are false although he has made no scientific tests or he has no scientific background. I know that there are paradigm shifts in science and sometimes old ideas are proven to be wrong. But those shifts happen through other scientific experiments/thoughts. As long as > 99 % of all scientists think that something is true, you should rather trust them then any conspiracy theorist…
What do you mean by “trusting in science”? Science isn’t meant to be trusted, it’s meant to be verified.
Given the reproducibility crisis occurring right now, nobody should be “trusting” in science as a matter of course- we should be verifying the decades of unverified research and dismissing the unverifiable research.
We fucked up the entire field of Alzheimer’s research for nearly a quarter century by “trusting in science”. We still bias towards publishing new research in academia over reproducing existing research. Science has a big problem with credibility right now and saying “oh just trust in science” isn’t the solution.
i mean i get the impulse, but if we were to blindly trust any sort of knowledge system, science is the one to trust, right? like, any downsides of trusting scientific consensus are necessarily larger when trusting information sources that aren’t scientific, and if you follow through with trusting science blindly, you might ignorantly begin to believe that empirical testing and intellectual honesty is necessary for determining the truth of your beliefs!
I would think it’s more about knowing how to trust it. See some news article about “This study said X”, don’t take it as fact. See a study that has been done numerous times by different groups that corroborate a result and you can have a much higher degree of trust in it. There is a reason the scientific method is a continuous circle, it requires a feedback loop of verifying results and reproducibility. The current issue is clickbait headlines getting the attention, people see it’s “Science” and blindly trust it and it becomes a religion like any other.
Not trusting in science.
Edit: Since there are many comments, I would like to clarify my statement. I meant that you should rather trust scientists, that the earth is round / that there is a human-made climate change, etc. and not listen to some random internet guy, that claims these things are false although he has made no scientific tests or he has no scientific background. I know that there are paradigm shifts in science and sometimes old ideas are proven to be wrong. But those shifts happen through other scientific experiments/thoughts. As long as > 99 % of all scientists think that something is true, you should rather trust them then any conspiracy theorist…
What do you mean by “trusting in science”? Science isn’t meant to be trusted, it’s meant to be verified.
Given the reproducibility crisis occurring right now, nobody should be “trusting” in science as a matter of course- we should be verifying the decades of unverified research and dismissing the unverifiable research.
We fucked up the entire field of Alzheimer’s research for nearly a quarter century by “trusting in science”. We still bias towards publishing new research in academia over reproducing existing research. Science has a big problem with credibility right now and saying “oh just trust in science” isn’t the solution.
That’s unironically the point. Science should not be blindly trusted.
i mean i get the impulse, but if we were to blindly trust any sort of knowledge system, science is the one to trust, right? like, any downsides of trusting scientific consensus are necessarily larger when trusting information sources that aren’t scientific, and if you follow through with trusting science blindly, you might ignorantly begin to believe that empirical testing and intellectual honesty is necessary for determining the truth of your beliefs!
I would think it’s more about knowing how to trust it. See some news article about “This study said X”, don’t take it as fact. See a study that has been done numerous times by different groups that corroborate a result and you can have a much higher degree of trust in it. There is a reason the scientific method is a continuous circle, it requires a feedback loop of verifying results and reproducibility. The current issue is clickbait headlines getting the attention, people see it’s “Science” and blindly trust it and it becomes a religion like any other.
Trust what? Many scientists will quite justifiably have completely opposing views (do vaccines cause autism for example).