Why so distrustful of Science ?

Question

I have noticed a worrying trend of distrust in science and scientists

I find it very odd, considering the millions of positives that science has bought us - why do you now instantly refuse to trust scientific consensus. ?

Many people go one and on about " They are all in it for funding" - but they are not, if scientists were in it for the money they wouldn't be scietists at all. A degree in physics in the UK will get you a very well paid job in the city, and many people go down that route- but those that stay in science and research stay because they have a passion for it , a yearning for understanding - why would they ALL want to lie ?

I say all, since I can accept that a few people will get paid off, or go on a quest for funding. but not many. Since so many are saying basically the same thing , I do not believe that they are ALL lying or being paid off , I doubt any are.

Answer 1

The worrying trend is in the erosion of scientific debate, especially in the AGW issue.  It is not uncommon in science for there to be opposing viewpoints on a theory:  look at Einstein's lifelong battle against theories of quantum mechanics for example.  It is very common when evidence is not iron-clad, and such is the case in the AGW theory.

What is disturbing, and very unscientific, is the resorting to name-calling -- "deniers" and "non-believers" are very common terms being thrown around.  That's not science:  it's religion.  It's attacking the person and not their arguments.  Not only that, but it's pervading all sciences now.  Read the Yahoo, Reuters, AP or any other "science" page on the web, and ask yourself how much of the material on those pages is actually science, and how much is just sensationalism.  It's worrying.

Answer 2

they are always changing their thoughts, ideas, truth

Answer 3

What does "Global warming is a subjective science" mean?

Nothing.  It's specious obfuscatory nonsense.

This gives you an idea of the mindset of these tripe peddling demagogs.

Answer 4

Unfortunatey, there is some bad science being touted as fact.  For example, the vast majority of ground based weather monitoring stations in our country....stations providing temperature data for tracking and forcasting.... have been found to be seriously deficient and are....as a result....reporting temperatures that are higher than actual.  The same can safely be assumed to be the case with monitoring stations in most of the rest of the world.  In other words...garbage in....garbage out.  I believe that most scientists are well-meaning, but if their data is flawed...so are their findings.  Politicians and profit-seekers are typically the culprits when it comes to 'conveniently' ignoring such facts.

Answer 5

Consensus is not fully established. Science is not static. Before Albert, Newton's theories seemed like the be all and end all of physics. And then, even some of Albert's work was refuted with the debut of Quantum physics.

Everything is a theory if you really think about it!

Answer 6

Your arguments apply equally well to why wouldn't everone living in ancient Greece go along with their ideas about science e.ge. the existance of 4 elements (earth air fire and water).  The answer is although it agreeds with the concensus of the time, it wasn't obtained using scientific method.  

People want to prove that humans are damaging the environment because they believe it is the right thing to do.  Researchers in this field seem to be behaving more like salesmen than scientists.

Answer 7

we are used to science that brings in goodies, not restrictions, so when scientists say we should stop using those cheap fuels and buy more expensive ones, and that demand is for a warning that sounds insubstantial to most people, we refuse to listen.

however, when global warming becomes the killer scientists claim it is going to be, we will all rush to those scientists and holler for ways out of the mess we created.

Answer 8

Everyone trusts scientists on a daily, even hourly basis.  We certainly aren't experts in every subject, especially the sciences, so we have to trust those who are experts.

However, when the experts come to conclusions which we don't like, suddenly people become 'skeptical'.  When the scientific evidence proves that the skepticism is unfounded, some will go into denial.

We see this in many of the answers here.  People claiming global warming science is subjective, that the surface temperature record is wrong, that the tens of thousands of climate scientists are all influenced by politics, etc. etc.  None of these arguments make any sense.

In short, people are distrustful of science when it's in their best interest.  In this case, they don't want to have to change their lifestyles or take responsibility for their environmental impacts.  This is the exact reason why the film was titled 'An Inconvenient Truth.'  It's not convenient, but it is truth.

Answer 9

I think you got it wrong.  Global warming is not an objective science.  No one doubts objective science, as proven by no one argues about the distance the Earth is from the Sun.

Global warming is a subjective science.  Scientist have to make a best guess as they don't know what the climate will be in the future.  

Not all scientist agree.  Many scientist in Russia and at NASA have determined that the Sun in the cause of global warming.  Yet there are those who claim to embrace science who are so quick to dismiss these scientist just because they don't agree with their beliefs.

Not all "scientists" are pure.  Some have alternative motives, and yes money is one of them.  This is why the standard for science should always be the objective standard.

Answer 10

You should always distrust the science, ALWAYS, it up to the scientists to prove to you that their assumptions, data, data collections methods, theories are sound. Many scientists have agendas that may not be apparent.

Not only has scientist brought us good it also has brought us a lot of trouble, also don’t forget the consensus has been wrong many times   Not even 500 years ago that all the western world was convinced that the earth was the center of the universe and the stars revolved around it. Around the time of the founding of the US, the accepted scientific view of combustion was that is that all matter contained an undefined amount of a nearly weightless substance called phlogiston. Phlogiston theory stated that combustion released phlogiston from a material, thereby explaining the corresponding loss of weight in the remaining product.

As late as 1864, it was the consensuses view of science that living organisms could spontaneously generate from lifeless matter.  Continental Drift went against the consensus at the time, also H. Pylori bacteria went against the consensus view that the stomach is totally inhospitable to bacteria.  

As far as why would then want to lie, some are mistaken, you don’t read about the scientists who jumped on AGW, ie man made global warming, only to change their mind after they do their research. You don’t hear about the scientists who disagree with man made global warming suddenly not being able to find funding. You don’t hear much about the scientists whose careers are threatened because they disagree. As far as hard to imagine getting funding in 30 years times, it funny a LOT of the very scientists who are pushing man made global warming put out such winners as silent spring, population bomb, global famine, ice age, DDT, none of them had any problem with funding.

Now as far as being quick to condemn, let’s see the solutions that have been proposes don’t address the problem, it moves money from one country to another. I’ve seen solutions that cost BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of dollars that would result in a temperature change so small that we couldn’t measure it. But let’s look at the IPCC, you know the group that has the thousands of scientists, the same group that let the politicians edit the summary report line by line, then stated that the IPCC would guarantee the report would match the summary.  They proposing to move billion of dollars to “poor” countries so the rich countries can keep putting out the CO2. If the problem was truly as bad as the IPCC states why not address the problem? Could it be that some the studies that weren’t finished when the IPCC issues its report are now show little or no link between CO2 and global warming? After all the IPCC stopped looking at the science in about 2005 What about the scientists who were on the IPCC who now say the panel is wrong, don’t hear too much about them do you, except to hear they aren’t real scientists. What about the scientist who had to sue to get his name removed from the IPCC list.

Remember politics and science NEVER make good bed partners.

Answer 11

Your question "Why so distrustful of science?" sounds as if people are distrustful of the scientific method.  Not true.  If anything, people have too must trust in the scientific method.  

What people do not trust are the scientists who are not following the scientific method.  Please read the first three paragraphs of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_...

Many of the scientists promoting global warming are not following the scientific method when it comes to data archiving, data sharing and openness. To understand how important this is, read some of the policies of the government funding agencies and scientific journals:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_sharin...

One example is the Hockey Stick Controversy.  Michael Mann attempted to photoshop the temperature record going back 2,000 years to take out the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age.  When Steve McIntyre tried to audit (reproduce) his study, Mann provided data at first.  When McIntyre found an error and asked for more data, Mann refused. A Dutch science magazine did a great story on this.  Here is the English translation.

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/researc...

The dendroclimatologists have almost all followed Mann's lead and refused to archive or share their data.  They do not want others checking their results or finding errors.  Why would they do that when they know it is contrary to the standards of science?  The only logical answer is because they are promoting an agenda and not science.  Why would they do that?  Because the agenda brings more money into their field so they can do much research and make more alarmist announcements and get on TV.  

Refusing to archive data is common in climatology.  Phil Jones of Climatic Research Unit (the keeper of the temperature record for UN's IPCC) does not archive his data and has repeatedly refused to share data.

Answer 12

I don't know why either. If scientists all say it's real, why doesn't everyone think it's real?

If you are in the hospital, and the doctor says, "you have cancer." you cant just say, "O, i dont believe in cancer". It's the same with all science and especially global waming. You cant deny what's happening!

Answer 13

I wounder what the flat earth people made money from?

Answer 14

Just think of all those scientists working in the cosmetic industry. The lies they come out with regarding the properties of their product are amazing. Where did their passion go?

Answer 15

I suggest reading physicist Richard Feynman's lecture on "Cargo Cult Science." It is not too lengthy, and I believe it will help answer your question.

Answer 16

My question is why not ?

Scientists are also people ..and u will find people of so many types ..either because of their human nature or because of the scientific concern they work for and sometimes by Politicians

A more respected profession is Medical Doctor ...I  think the idea about doctors being close to god and life saviour has been long back thwarted....

And moreover ,  in today's world "Wisdom of Crowds"  and "Collective Group thinking" is catching up . So the importance of the so called EXPERTS is diminishing ...it's only the GROUP WORK , GROUP THINKING....

There is a very good principle about group thinking

"Given the right conditions, a group of 500 people from diverse backgrounds are more intelligent than Einstein"

And the those people may be just Laymans....

Looks strange but look back at the history ....You will find many individuals  rising to name and fame and sometimes even considered as Father of Astronomy etc etc ....but you don't find any father figures these days...

In future every community in human civilization will be like the colony of ants where every person will be of varying intelligence and calibre but no one really knowing evrything and no one raising to the father like figures

It will all be GROUP , GROUP and GROUP ...and hence Scientists are also humans ..they can also be suspected

Answer 17

You condemn us fo rcondemning themn for the same infraction- misinterpretation.

Scientists are not bad people are are not making things up. I like the evidence that many scientists have uncovered that show a grdaul warming of the planet. That is undeniable proof of warming. What is not provable at this time is the CAUSE of it. Even the scientists that you hold so dear to your heart cannot say beyond any shadow of doubt that humans have caused it. The warming process could take hundreds of years. It oculd have started 200 years ago and gone through cold and wamr spells since then. the core smaple that are taken are very good evidence that shows the warming and cooling process is usually very gradual. Who's to say that it's not another cycle?

Another core samle showed the ice came quicly a long time agao, one of the ice ages. "quickly" defined by this particular group was over 300 years. So how can I swallow that humans have caused this warming when their is still no evidence that proves it? Yes there is a depletion in the ozone: studies have shown that it is possibly cyclic as well. Who's to say it;s not when the technology that we use to study it is still not older than 40 years old? We really just started having the ability to look at these things and conclusions are being made on a doomsday belief that cannot be proven for at leat another 200 years.

i am very environmentally firendly- notout of fear of global warming though, because it is the right thing to do.

Don't be so hard on the people that don't agree with you. If you really want to make changes you ahve to appeal to what everyone wants and strike a balance- the world has enough extreme people. Most folks tune them out pretty quickly.