This really feels like one of those curves where the edges on both sides would have similar conclusions.
On one end you have stupid people and partisan folks denying ‘science’ because it disagrees with their gut about vaccines and 6,000 year old dinosaurs.
But on the other you have people actually in academia broadly aware of institutional issues from the optimization around pressure to publish that’s led to everything from falsified papers across multiple domains, several reproducibility crises, journals previously highly respected publishing papers that are either retracted or very questionable, failures to properly report conflicts of interest, etc.
Science as a methodology is great and awesome and a very valuable thing for society, but there are real concerns with institutional issues surrounding it right now that unfortunately are probably going to get ignored as people circle the wagons to defend it against criticisms from abject morons upset it isn’t validating BS.
If the past few years have taught me anything, it’s that what seems an innate biological bias humans have to see things as binary opposites with a side to be picked as opposed to a multidimensional gradient with nuances is going to kill us all.
I actually find the various crises around science a good thing. It means that people are paying attention and are aware of scandals and issues, which gives me more hope of something changing because of it.
Contrast that with a system that never changes because it’s perfect – I know what I find more trustworthy.
This really feels like one of those curves where the edges on both sides would have similar conclusions.
On one end you have stupid people and partisan folks denying ‘science’ because it disagrees with their gut about vaccines and 6,000 year old dinosaurs.
But on the other you have people actually in academia broadly aware of institutional issues from the optimization around pressure to publish that’s led to everything from falsified papers across multiple domains, several reproducibility crises, journals previously highly respected publishing papers that are either retracted or very questionable, failures to properly report conflicts of interest, etc.
Science as a methodology is great and awesome and a very valuable thing for society, but there are real concerns with institutional issues surrounding it right now that unfortunately are probably going to get ignored as people circle the wagons to defend it against criticisms from abject morons upset it isn’t validating BS.
If the past few years have taught me anything, it’s that what seems an innate biological bias humans have to see things as binary opposites with a side to be picked as opposed to a multidimensional gradient with nuances is going to kill us all.
I actually find the various crises around science a good thing. It means that people are paying attention and are aware of scandals and issues, which gives me more hope of something changing because of it.
Contrast that with a system that never changes because it’s perfect – I know what I find more trustworthy.
Yeah, every sufficiently big group has unethical folks in it.
It’s when the group never condemns insider and even defends them when obvious misdeeds happen, where you need to be extra wary.