[Subjectivist]

Scott Adams has just written a nice blog about how science works and how media causes confusion in the general public about what the science says vs what the media interprets it to be saying. Science only needs one contrary trend to disprove a theory and cause it to be modified but when media likes the theory they actively dispute the contrary information. The media is not science, and even science writers tend to go for flashy stories with little data instead of trying to ferret out what the details are.
More at the link,
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1098802406 ... ggest-fail

Today I saw a link to an article in Mother Jones bemoaning the fact that the general public is out of step with the consensus of science on important issues. The implication is that science is right and the general public are idiots. But my take is different.

I think science has earned its lack of credibility with the public. If you kick me in the balls for 20-years, how do you expect me to close my eyes and trust you?

We humans operate on pattern recognition. The pattern science serves up, thanks to its winged monkeys in the media, is something like this:

Step One: We are totally sure the answer is X.

Step Two: Oops. X is wrong. But Y is totally right. Trust us this time.

Science isn’t about being right every time, or even most of the time. It is about being more right over time and fixing what it got wrong. So how is a common citizen supposed to know when science is “done” and when it is halfway to done which is the same as being wrong?

[dinopello]

On science, the popular media over emphasizes the proclamation and under emphasized the method.

[KaiserJeep]

Once "Science" thought that bad luck, poor crops, destructive weather, and sickness were caused by "spirits".

A bit later, they decided that "bad air" caused sickness.

Once Science thought that the Earth was the center of the Solar System, and tortured anybody who thought different.

Once Science thought that electromagnetic waves were "vibrations" in the invisible "ether" that pervades all space.

Now "some" practitioners of Science believe that humans burning fossil fuels change the Climate worldwide.

I am tempted to say that what "Science" actually is would be an organized way of being wrong - with confidence.

[Keith_McClary]

Once Science thought that electromagnetic waves were "vibrations" in the invisible "ether" that pervades all space.

That was a reasonable hypothesis until there were contrary experiments.

Do you think there are no scientists who are correct on climate?

[kuidaskassikaeb]

Dear Subjectivist:

That was a good read.

What’s is science’s biggest fail of all time?

I nominate everything about diet and fitness.

So true.

He does get to climate change which is what everybody thinks about, but its just a coda.

[Plantagenet]

Once Science thought that the Earth was the center of the Solar System, and tortured anybody who thought different.

Actually it was religion that did that.

[jedrider]

The biggest fail of 'science' has been in public health science. It is NOT really representative of the rest of science IMO. Is Cholesterol 'good' for you or 'bad' for you? I don't even know, so that has been a huge FAIL for 'health' science. It seems to have tarnished the image of science for the general public, whereas, in general, science has been steadily marching forward in all other respects.

[Keith_McClary]

I am tempted to say that what "Science" actually is would be an organized way of being wrong - with confidence.

So, what is "Engineering" ?

[Keith_McClary]

Once Science thought that electromagnetic waves were "vibrations" in the invisible "ether" that pervades all space.

That was a reasonable hypothesis until there were contrary experiments.

We now think that electromagnetic waves are (quantum) vibrations in a field that pervades all space.

[Quinny]

Once someone said that if you get enough monkeys typing they'll produce a work of Shakespeare.

This is not Shakespeare!

Once "Science" thought that bad luck, poor crops, destructive weather, and sickness were caused by "spirits".

A bit later, they decided that "bad air" caused sickness.

Once Science thought that the Earth was the center of the Solar System, and tortured anybody who thought different.

Once Science thought that electromagnetic waves were "vibrations" in the invisible "ether" that pervades all space.

Now "some" practitioners of Science believe that humans burning fossil fuels change the Climate worldwide.

I am tempted to say that what "Science" actually is would be an organized way of being wrong - with confidence.

[Subjectivist]

Once someone said that if you get enough monkeys typing they'll produce a work of Shakespeare.

This is not Shakespeare!

Once "Science" thought that bad luck, poor crops, destructive weather, and sickness were caused by "spirits".

A bit later, they decided that "bad air" caused sickness.

Once Science thought that the Earth was the center of the Solar System, and tortured anybody who thought different.

Once Science thought that electromagnetic waves were "vibrations" in the invisible "ether" that pervades all space.

Now "some" practitioners of Science believe that humans burning fossil fuels change the Climate worldwide.

I am tempted to say that what "Science" actually is would be an organized way of being wrong - with confidence.

Actually it's if you have an infinite number of monkeys typing randomly some of them will type the complete works of William Shakespeare with every word spelled and punctuated properly.

We learned that in physics class. If you extend random sequences long enough patterns begin to emerge. Theoretically if you extend them to infinity the patterns will become more and more complex. If your sequence of random output is limited to the letters, numbers and punctuation marks on a standard typewriter the patterns that show up include words and even complete sentences. The thought problem was, if you do this with an infinite number of sequences based on different starting points what kind of output sequence can you get? Of coarse we were learning about computers, but the principle is the same as monkeys banging away randomly on a keyboard.

[dinopello]

Washington Post: Why science is so hard to believe.

The scientific method leads us to truths that are less than self-evident, often mind-blowing and sometimes hard to swallow. In the early 17th century, when Galileo claimed that the Earth spins on its axis and orbits the sun, he wasn’t just rejecting church doctrine. He was asking people to believe something that defied common sense — because it sure looks like the sun’s going around the Earth, and you can’t feel the Earth spinning. Galileo was put on trial and forced to recant. Two centuries later, Charles Darwin escaped that fate. But his idea that all life on Earth evolved from a primordial ancestor and that we humans are distant cousins of apes, whales and even deep-sea mollusks is still a big ask for a lot of people.

Shtulman’s research indicates that as we become scientifically literate, we repress our naive beliefs but never eliminate them entirely. They nest in our brains, chirping at us as we try to make sense of the world.

Even for scientists, the scientific method is a hard discipline. They, too, are vulnerable to confirmation bias — the tendency to look for and see only evidence that confirms what they already believe. But unlike the rest of us, they submit their ideas to formal peer review before publishing them. Once the results are published, if they’re important enough, other scientists will try to reproduce them — and, being congenitally skeptical and competitive, will be very happy to announce that they don’t hold up.

[dorlomin]

We learned that in physics class. If you extend random sequences long enough patterns begin to emerge.

You must have had a very different kind of "physics class" to me. Psuedorandom generators do not create true randomness, but it true randomness == no patterns.
The whole random\Shakespeare thing is that pseudo-patterns can briefly emerge, an illusion of a patter for a short time. But these are not real patterns because they do not repeat at predictable intervals.

[dorlomin]

The biggest fail of 'science' has been in public health science. It is NOT really representative of the rest of science IMO. Is Cholesterol 'good' for you or 'bad' for you?

The fact you do not know if cholesterol is good for you is the biggest fail in science?
Seriously?

"Public health science" you mean things like epidemiology, nutrition, physiology has been an incredible benefit to the well being of western peoples. The fact that companies ply people with adverts for high fat foods, alcohol, smoking etc is hardly the fault the science, that newspapers and media make a constant stream of ludicrous claims about what causes cancer or what will make you thin is hardly the fault of the sober and well regarded sciences that make up what you call public health science.

[dorlomin]

Once "Science" thought that bad luck, poor crops, destructive weather, and sickness were caused by "spirits".

A bit later, they decided that "bad air" caused sickness.

Once Science thought that the Earth was the center of the Solar System, and tortured anybody who thought different.

Once Science thought that electromagnetic waves were "vibrations" in the invisible "ether" that pervades all space.

So the fail of science in your mind is that it keeps getting better, making newer discoveries that invalidate the old ones and learning more about our universe.

That is the weakest logic to use as a lead into to an anticlimate science screed one can imagine.

And if Earth was at the centre, it would hardly have been a solar system.

[dorlomin]

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1098802406 ... ggest-fail

What’s is science’s biggest fail of all time?

I nominate everything about diet and fitness.

How is this a "fail of science". Its an industry that has something to sell. The diet and fitness industries are only tangentially related to science. The biggest fails in science would be something like eugenics, which had disastrous social consequence.

If anyone is willing to spend 20 minutes delving into what science is I recommend this lecture on Kuhn's theories, built around his famous book "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions". An incredibly important work and a fantastic demolition of Popperism and the logical positivists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SurVpGvrzrE

[Outcast_Searcher]

Now "some" practitioners of Science believe that humans burning fossil fuels change the Climate worldwide.

Actually, at least 97% of those practicioners agree with this. And there is a hell of a lot of data (with more being collected all the time) which supports it.

Science isn't perfect. However, it's very organized and has shown to be hugely successful in allowing technical achievements over time -- verses any alternate method including relying on the intuition of denialists.

How would be build skyscrapers, drill and refine huge quantities of oil, or build technology like smart-phones and the internet without science? Is your alternative to live in caves and blame evil spirits for bad living conditions?

[Outcast_Searcher]

The media never talks for working people and their needs.

Wow. So in your world, MSNBC and PBS don't exist? Mainstream TV media outlets like CNBC, etc. that often whine about economic "unfairness" of the "poor" don't exist?

What world do you live in? In my world, aside from far-right dominated talks show radio and far-right publications like the WSJ, the media spends a LOT of time complaining about the plight of "working people and their needs" and about the plight of poor people generally, regardless of whether they work or not.