This kind of dismissal is at best unhelpful and at worst even suspicious. Why does it bother you that people discuss this topic? Science influences policy and influences our behaviour and well-being, of course we want to know when it's biased.
The fact that it's not "new" is irrelevant. A lot of bad things are happening and sometimes we forget about a particular bad thing. Some of us genuinely don't know.
Skepticism is fine but dismissively throwing it out and mocking people that want to know more because it's a politically divisive topic is not. Science is not political and should not be influenced by politics. We should be throwing more studies at this, especially if you don't trust the current researchers.
This is effectively a disconnect between science and public policy. Science teaches us to keep our minds open to new data, so we can make new conclusions as we go. People just seem to get pissed when public policy changes in light of new data, lending to the narrative that scientists don't know what they're talking about.
This is just more of the same of what we have seen over the last few years. People claiming that science should somehow be filtered to not offend or to promote the "approved" agenda and goals.
And it's all nonsense. If the science (actual science, not the beaurocratic science we've seen of late) shows X, then I don't care how it can be interpreted. Release the data and let the conclusions be discussed, which will ultimately sprout more research and more data to clarify and guide the conclusions being drawn.
Otherwise, you're just picking and choosing what is considered science based one your own biases.
I think that OP is saying that science has become exceedingly politicized over the last decade. In which case they're right. Politically tainted science has emerged from the entire political spectrum, and it's enough to make you not want to trust what anyone claims to be science.
So I think you might be misunderstanding my point a bit.
Scientists and Doctors should be talking about it in scientific forums and communities. Politicians should be reiterating the 'current consensus'.
People shouldn't be talking about it in public / tabloid forums because the information is vague, misrepresented and will be taken entirely out of context.
I totally support people taking contrarian positions.
I think we should probably assign people towards being 'The Devil's Advocate'.
The issue is not 'freedom of expression and open dialogue' - it's one of 'crude populism and misinformation'.
It's about how information is propagated, and how people react to it.
This is a reasonable criticism. But it is primarily a criticism of science reporting and public health policy. Many people agree with what you are saying, but instead of deciding we need changes to the way the media and government handle science, they decide science is bullshit and we end up with a major and growing political movement based on proud ignorance.
Fully agree however the fundamental science shouldn't be concerned with the fact many are ignoring science.
It's science's job to do the best it can to discover the facts which provide the fundamental information needed for useful actionable changes. Someone still needs to develop actionable policy based on that information, and then we have to decide as a society which actions we want to take.
Various scientists have provided short term control solutions and are working on even more of them. We've seen those solutions around the world effectively curbing the spread.
Different socieities and their governments have chosen what to do or not do with that information, and now you see the results across the world, depending on what people chose to do with that information.
If we understand long term implications as well as short term, this provides even more information to make useful actionable policy decisions.
It shouldn't matter how you think, or how a change of opinion is viewed.
The idea is that science should be continuous discovery process - scientists are meant to be acting in good faith, not hiding or 'managing' information. If we are genuinely seeking understanding (not attempting to sell people on a particular viewpoint), why shouldn't new information be widely disseminated?
Whatever has been going on, it is clear that from the start this has been a massively politicised process directing the world's governments. That it is so politicised means that I personally have very little faith in the scientific proclamations that are handed down.
Yes, this, exactly. It's hardly a scientific topic anymore. Not that there wouldn't be any science involved but it's become increasingly hard to tell the science from the political scare mongering, which is why - for the time being - I try to dismiss it altogether until the dust has (finally) settled and we're presented with actual facts and objective articles.
I think given the current political climate (sic), scientists tends to be overly cautious on these subjects. They know they can be berated for any not fully proven detail or tiny error. All in all I don't think this is a bad thing, forces against real changes are such that incremental actions are the norm anyway.
IMO, it means something like undermining the trust in elected government and law makers.
There's a lot of policy making for which there's no solid evidence, because –crudely said– social sciences are far too sloppy. However, I don't think much policy is based on it. But in the public on-line debate (whether that's run by trolls or not), many appeal to science in their arguments. Perhaps that has some impact?
The article itself has the same vibe as online debates. The first example of biased science is medical experiments using men, and some totally unnecessary anthropomorphization of the reproductive process, which sounds more like virtue signalling than pertaining to the topic. Whorff-Sapir like arguments complete the picture.
Other arguments in the article point out that scientists can have a rather limited vision, resulting in sub-optimal solutions. But as I said above, I don't think much policy making is largely based on science, and the examples given point as much in the direction of tunnel vision by policy makers as the scientists they consult.
> Is there anything that doesn't
Where trust is absent, everything appears hostile. That would make a good Latin fake quote...
The problem with science is that it's findings get exaggerated by the media and by politicians. People latch onto one positive result, and ignore all the negative results. The media reports on findings that haven't been replicated yet, and significantly distort and exaggerate them.
Even within science, there are problems like publication bias and political bias.
Of course scientists can be wrong, but letting politicians ignore science, as we currently do, is clearly a disaster.
This is supposed to be a site for technical people and I see much more trashing of this post than discussion of how to actually address the issue it’s raising. Can someone tell me what’s going on there??
I'm not opposed to erring on the side of caution where things are evolving fast and we may not have enough good science. What I'm opposed to is making political statements like this because it can easily backfire, especially when society is already very polarised.
This is really NOT the topic that most people are OK handwaving away simply because the evidence isn't there, because this topic is older than the concept of science itself and it's the #1 thing that gives anything around here any meaning whatsoever.
Inventing the scientific method doesn't mean you get a carte blanche to call invalid everything you haven't gotten around to understanding with it.
This is not a solved problem and if someone gets this tech it's going to become an issue. A political issue, not a scientific one, because this one is in the region of politics, science doesn't know what's going on here.
The fact that it's not "new" is irrelevant. A lot of bad things are happening and sometimes we forget about a particular bad thing. Some of us genuinely don't know.
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