Ratio Scientiae
Ratio Scientiae Blog
  • Home
  • Meet the Author
  • Ratio Scientiae Blog
  • Random Science
  • Writing & News
  • Nonfiction Books
    • Science Can Be Right Because It Can Be Wrong
  • Fiction Books
    • The Sun Zebra
    • Spirit Women
  • Science Cat (Mascot)
  • Contact

5/22/2020

So, You Know More Than the Experts, Eh?

0 Comments

Read Now
 
Picture
I have had a few exchanges with all sorts of irrational skeptics who advocate conspiracy theories, from global warming and COVID-19 severity deniers to anti-vaccination advocates, creationists,  and chemtrail and flat Earth proponents. One of the things I’ve noted about these skeptics, the vast majority of whom have never personally studied or trained as scientists, is that they believe that they know more than the experts. To justify this stance, these individuals employ several rationalizations.

First and foremost, irrational skeptics argue that there is a conspiracy. They claim that the majority of scientists who accept the consensus in fields that have become hot button issues are either corrupt individuals who have sold out and misrepresented or faked their data, or cowardly, mistaken, or dumb persons who go along with the herd. It follows then that there is no point in listening to the experts as whatever they say is tainted. Thus the training, experience, publications, ideas, and achievements of scientists become irrelevant.
 
Second, irrational skeptics do support those scientists who criticize the consensus in these fields. Presumably, in the eyes of these skeptics, the mere action of disagreeing with their peers makes these contrarian scientists right. This is why, more often than not, irrational skeptics end up supporting individuals who are at best misguided and at worst frauds. For example, those opposed to vaccination supported the infamous Andrew Wakefield who put forward the notion that the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine is linked to autism (which it isn’t). Wakefield convinced many parents not to vaccinate their children leading to a surge in measles and mumps in many areas.
 
This is not to say that all individuals that buck the trend in their fields are misguided. Some are honest people who want to examine the data on their own terms. Such was the case of Richard Muller. He questioned global warming and for a while he was a darling of the global warming denialists. But Dr. Muller was not an irrational skeptic. He did what no irrational skeptic would dare to do. He got funds, assembled a team that examined the data of global warming on their own, and indeed confirmed that global warming was real! As a result of this, scores of his formers supporters turned on him. The irrational skeptics will support specific scientists only if their views are the same as theirs.
 
Third, having disavowed the majority of scientists and embraced those with extreme views, irrational skeptics then feel that, with no scientific training whatsoever, they are competent to read the scientific literature and figure out what is and isn’t valid. This has been humorously phrased as getting your degree from “Google University”.
 
Scientists have to go through a learning process that takes more than a decade and involves training with other scientists just to bring them up to speed in their fields, and teach them how to think about science and how to evaluate what they read. A scientific article is not valid by the mere fact that it got published. There are a lot of mediocre publications in the scientific literature with questionable data and ideas, and this is even more so today with the advent of the so-called predatory journals and pre-print publishing. When scientists read the scientific literature, they evaluate what they read based on their knowledge and, more importantly, their experience. By the time scientists reach intellectual maturity they have experienced what it is to be wrong countless times and also witnessed the mistakes of others. Thus, most scientists can recognize when the evidence does not favor their ideas, and this ability is essential to avoid fooling themselves.
 
People not trained as scientists have not “lived” what it is to be wrong within the context of scientific research, and when they take it upon themselves to read the scientific literature without any formal training or practical experience they don’t recognize when the evidence shows they are wrong. They are fooling themselves, and they have become so impervious to evidence that they cannot be proven to be wrong. Thus their ideas and arguments have ceased to be scientific. If there is no way you can be wrong, then there is no way you can be right.
 
This is not to say that the word of individual experts should be taken as dogma, especially when they pontificate about things outside of their field of expertise. A lot of scientist have said stupid things and advocated false or silly ideas. However, when the vast majority of scientists in a scientific field arrive at a consensus supported by a sufficiently-developed scientific theory, this is something that should be valued and respected by us as individuals and as a society. Nothing good can come from questioning the honesty of the experts and berating their training, skills, expertise, and achievements just because what they are finding runs contrary to the beliefs of some people. And if on top of that these very same people also assume that they know more than the experts and that they are capable of navigating the subtleties and complexities of the scientific literature, then we open the door to the acceptance of all sorts of error and quackery.
 

Image by Tumisu from pixabay is free for commercial use and was modified.

Share

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

Details

    Categories

    All
    911
    Absence Of Evidence
    Adrenaline
    Adrenochrome
    Advances In War Medicine
    Affidavits
    Alder's Razor
    Alfred Wegener
    Alzheimer's Disease
    Amyloid Theory
    Ancient Astronauts
    Animal Rights
    Animals
    Anthony Fauci
    Anthropomorphism
    Antibodies
    Anti Vaccination
    Astronauts
    Autumn
    Bambi
    Believers
    Bias
    Big Bang Theory Sitcom
    Bigfoot
    Bill Ney
    Black Death
    Blind Experimental Design
    Brain
    Brains
    Building 7
    Buoyancy
    Cancer
    Cannonballs
    Carnivores
    Catoctin Mountains
    Cell Culture
    Center Of Mass
    Challenger
    Chance
    Chemical Names
    Chemical Reactions
    Chemtrails
    Chesapeake Bay
    Chimborazo
    Citations
    Citogenesis
    Civil War
    Climate Change
    Climategate
    Climate Skeptics
    Clinical Trial
    Coelacanth
    Coincidence
    Cold-Stress
    Communicating Science
    Completeness Of Scientific Theories
    Consciousness
    Conspiracy
    Contrails
    Controls
    Coquina Rock
    Coronavirus
    Counterintuitive Facts
    COVID19
    COVID 19 Vaccine
    COVID-19 Vaccine
    Creationism
    Cross-Sectional Method
    Cryptozoology
    Dan Shechtman
    Demonic Possession
    Density
    Devotion To Science
    Dihydrogen Monoxide
    Dinosaurs
    Discrimination
    Disgust
    Dishonesty In Science
    Diversity In Methodologies
    Diversity In Scientists
    DNA
    Doctors
    Donald Trump
    Double Slit Experiment
    Do Your Own Research
    Dreams
    Dr. Gloom's Crypt Of Curiosities
    Drugs
    Dust Bunnies
    Eclipse
    Efrain Racker
    Einstein
    Elections 2020
    End Of The World
    Erosion
    Established Science
    Everest
    Evidence
    Evolution
    Exorcism
    Experimenter Bias
    Experiments You Can Do In Your Home
    Experts
    Extinction
    Face Masks
    Facts
    Faith
    Faith Healing
    Fall
    Falsifiability
    Fantastical Claims
    Fauna
    Fear
    Feynman
    Finger Snapping
    Fosbury Flop
    Francis Crick
    Frankenstein
    Fraud
    Frederick's Municipal Forest
    Free Will
    Fruit Fly
    Funerals
    Funny
    Galaxies
    Genes
    Genius
    Geology
    Global Warming
    Global Warming Denial
    Gravitational Waves
    Gravity
    Gun Violence
    Hanlon’s Razor
    HeLa Cells
    Henrietta Lacks
    Heroic Science
    Hitchens's Razor
    Hoax
    Homosexuality
    Human Experimentation
    Human Folly
    Hurricane
    Hydroxychloroquine
    Hypothesis
    Ignaz Semmelweis
    Ignorance As Evidence
    Immunotherapy
    Infamy Or Glory
    Influenza
    Insults
    Intelligence
    Intelligence Tests
    Intelligent Design
    Iraq War
    Irish Washerwoman
    Isaac Asimov
    James Watson
    Katherine Hayhoe
    Language
    Lazarus Effect
    Left Fork Rocks
    Level Of Detail
    Libet Experiment
    Lightning
    Limericks
    Limitations Of Science
    Loch Ness Monster
    Lord Howe Island Stick Insect
    Mad Scientist
    Magnus Effect
    Max Planck
    Medical Risks
    Medical Terms
    Mediums
    Mental Illness
    Mice
    Microbiome
    Mind
    Mind In The Gutter
    Misuse Of Science
    MMR Vaccine
    Mnemonic Devices
    Moments Of Discovery
    Monty Hall Puzzle
    Movies
    NASA
    Natural
    Nature
    Nature Of Science
    Negative Evidence
    Nerds
    Newton
    Nobel Prize
    N-Rays
    Obesity
    Occam's Razor
    Open Mind
    Ouija Board
    Oxbow Lakes
    Para-Dimethylaminobenzaldehyde
    Paranormal
    Pasteur Louis
    Peak Of Illusion
    Peers
    Perception
    Philosophy
    Phobias
    Physics
    Pink Lady's Slippers
    Plague
    Politicization Of Science
    Polywater
    Popper’s Falsifiability Principle
    Possible/Impossible
    Power To The People!
    Predatory Journals
    Pregnancy
    Premonitions
    Probability
    Prophesy
    Pseudoscience
    Psychic
    Publication
    Puerperal Fever
    QAnon
    Quack
    Quackery
    Quantum Mechanics
    Quartzite
    Racism
    Radical New Ideas
    Randomness
    Ratio Scientiae
    Reality
    Reason
    Religion
    Rock Climbing
    Rosalyn Franklin
    Sagan's Standard
    Salem Witch Trials
    Sample Size
    Science Fiction
    Science Jokes
    Science Pranks
    Scientific Consensus
    Scientific Establishment
    Scientific Guidelines
    Scientific Journals
    Scientific Method
    Scientific Names
    Scientific Question
    Scientific Terms
    Scientific Theories
    Seashells
    Self-Experimentation
    Shape Of The Earth
    Skepticism
    Skeptics
    Skin Color
    Slavery
    Snake Oil
    Soccer
    Sonic Hedgehog
    Spanish Flu
    Spontaneous Generation
    Stanley Prusiner
    Stars
    Star Trek
    Statistical Significance
    Statistics
    Sublime/Ridiculous
    Suicide
    Surface To Volume Ratio
    Swanson Conversion
    Swine Flu
    Tangier Island
    Taxonomy
    Technical Details
    Thomas Young
    Timeline Method
    Transposable Elements
    Trusted Messenger
    Trust In Scientists
    Truth
    Tyranny Of Fantasy
    Understanding
    Universe
    Vaccine Hesitancy
    Vaccines
    Vacuum
    VAERS
    Valley Of Despair
    Values
    Video Games
    West Side Story
    Wikipedia
    Wolf Rock
    Women
    World Trade Center
    Xenophobia
    Zinc
    Zombies

    Archives

    January 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • Meet the Author
  • Ratio Scientiae Blog
  • Random Science
  • Writing & News
  • Nonfiction Books
    • Science Can Be Right Because It Can Be Wrong
  • Fiction Books
    • The Sun Zebra
    • Spirit Women
  • Science Cat (Mascot)
  • Contact