I really like this article, and if I had the time I'd expand on my response to it, but to try and boil down my thoughts to their barest essence:
- This seems to position the goal as defending science, but if science were shown to be a bad method, then I wouldn't think it worth defending / holding on to. The goal, to me, is truth. If anyone can show me a better method than the scientific method, then I will adopt that. I accept science itself only provisionally.
- The replication crisis is an example of the practice of science/academia failing, but also how it can correct its failures. The nature and scope of it, where there is a massive inflection point of us suddenly finding out that many methods are less reliable than we thought, is wrong. Detecting it is good, but corrective measures were clearly not being applied for quite a long time.
- I think it is notable that the replication crisis isn't talked about much by people who generally are science-optimistic in public. Despite a lot of claims that had spread into public discourse failing replication, or being much more limited in nature and scope, there is little discussion about the role science played in this misinformation. Given the partisan nature of many of these claims, it makes academia come across as one-sided.
- Science shouldn't require trust, nor should it revolve around credentialism. Terrence Howard is talking about math in the example given, but him being an actor doesn't in and of itself discredit his position. Most lay people lack the background in order to make a good critique, but from their perspective, when they think they have a valid point, dismissing them out of hand based on their profession is both intellectually vacuous and understandably off-putting.
- Due to differences in definitions, I think experts often make incorrect and indefensible statements in discussions with lay people. Economists talking about "efficiency" is a pretty good example of this, where economic efficiency isn't quite what ordinary people typically think about in terms of efficiency.
Thank you for your comment, and for pointing out the faulty link — I’ve fixed it. I appreciate the points you raise, especially the third one. Here are some initial thoughts that come to mind.
One important issue is the challenge of communicating science to the general public, where simplification is often necessary — and required by the media.
Another factor are questionable motivations of scientists who seek out public platforms; they probably view the self-critical, nuanced thinking that science demands as a liability; oversimplification and certainty are often rewarded. In a popular science book I wrote in Dutch, I proposed an (I think) useful rule of thumb: be wary of any (social) scientist who speaks with a lot of conviction or certainty.
Finally, confirmation bias plays a role. Given that most scientists tend to share a particular political orientation, as you note, they tend to apply the critical lens that I was talking about in the post more rigorously to research that challenges their views than to studies that align with their beliefs. This is not a good thing, of course, and is worthy of study. Although I haven't come across them, there probably already are studies on this topic out there in the literature.
I'll have to think on this issue some more, but it might be a good topic for a future post. Thanks for bringing it up.
Your link to the large-scale international survey doesn't work, I am assuming it is this https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-024-02090-5.
I really like this article, and if I had the time I'd expand on my response to it, but to try and boil down my thoughts to their barest essence:
- This seems to position the goal as defending science, but if science were shown to be a bad method, then I wouldn't think it worth defending / holding on to. The goal, to me, is truth. If anyone can show me a better method than the scientific method, then I will adopt that. I accept science itself only provisionally.
- The replication crisis is an example of the practice of science/academia failing, but also how it can correct its failures. The nature and scope of it, where there is a massive inflection point of us suddenly finding out that many methods are less reliable than we thought, is wrong. Detecting it is good, but corrective measures were clearly not being applied for quite a long time.
- I think it is notable that the replication crisis isn't talked about much by people who generally are science-optimistic in public. Despite a lot of claims that had spread into public discourse failing replication, or being much more limited in nature and scope, there is little discussion about the role science played in this misinformation. Given the partisan nature of many of these claims, it makes academia come across as one-sided.
- Science shouldn't require trust, nor should it revolve around credentialism. Terrence Howard is talking about math in the example given, but him being an actor doesn't in and of itself discredit his position. Most lay people lack the background in order to make a good critique, but from their perspective, when they think they have a valid point, dismissing them out of hand based on their profession is both intellectually vacuous and understandably off-putting.
- Due to differences in definitions, I think experts often make incorrect and indefensible statements in discussions with lay people. Economists talking about "efficiency" is a pretty good example of this, where economic efficiency isn't quite what ordinary people typically think about in terms of efficiency.
Thank you for your comment, and for pointing out the faulty link — I’ve fixed it. I appreciate the points you raise, especially the third one. Here are some initial thoughts that come to mind.
One important issue is the challenge of communicating science to the general public, where simplification is often necessary — and required by the media.
Another factor are questionable motivations of scientists who seek out public platforms; they probably view the self-critical, nuanced thinking that science demands as a liability; oversimplification and certainty are often rewarded. In a popular science book I wrote in Dutch, I proposed an (I think) useful rule of thumb: be wary of any (social) scientist who speaks with a lot of conviction or certainty.
Finally, confirmation bias plays a role. Given that most scientists tend to share a particular political orientation, as you note, they tend to apply the critical lens that I was talking about in the post more rigorously to research that challenges their views than to studies that align with their beliefs. This is not a good thing, of course, and is worthy of study. Although I haven't come across them, there probably already are studies on this topic out there in the literature.
I'll have to think on this issue some more, but it might be a good topic for a future post. Thanks for bringing it up.