<< STRIKE! STRIKE! STRIKE! ~ MAIN ~ VOLTS IN SPACE >>
SCIENTISTS TERRIFIED
I blame Tim Flannery:
After two days of provocative ideas and spirited exchanges at an international gathering recently in Toronto, British museum curator Robert Bud neatly summed up the collective wisdom.
“The scientists are terrified.”
This widespread angst among scientists has been sparked by evidence that the traditional social compact between science and the public has been irrevocably sundered. Put bluntly, much of the public no longer implicitly trusts either scientists or their pronouncements about everything from climate change to the safety of children’s vaccines.
This scientist-doubt is global:
Indonesia’s deadly Mount Kelud spewed fresh clouds of smoke Monday and the temperature of its crater lake soared, as scientists warned any eruption could be much stronger than the last time it blew its top.
Given how prone scientists have become to predicting doom, the reaction is understandable:
While several thousand people have fled to government shelters, authorities said Sunday that around 25,000 others were ignoring evacuation orders and remained in the danger zone.
In this case, it might be wise to get out of town for a while. Then again:
Scientists said an eruption might not occur at all given the unpredictable nature of the 5,679-foot mountain.
Can we get a consensus around here?
It’s not easy being Chicken Little these days, I guess.
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2007 11 05 at 10:27 AM • permalinkThe participants were overwhelmingly academics from the humanities and social sciences who examine the history, philosophy and impact of technology, as opposed to researchers from the natural sciences, medicine and life sciences. Indeed, knowledge among the participants about those other sciences was highly variable.
I think we have the problem identified.
I’ll be in the longer line of Indonesians. If the lava and volcanic ash don’t get you, the slow-moving-10cm-per-year tidal wave or a hungry displaced polar bear will. Why sit around worrying about which one it will be? I say, buy a Esplanade, open the windows with the heat cranked up full blast, drink whole milk, bath in a tub of ambergris, smoke filterless Camels and eat all the red meat and pizza you want.
#3 Zoe
Right on target! The debasement of the word “science” has a long history. Marx called Communism “Scientific Socialism.”
Perhaps they are using the word as Mark Twain did in his celebrated lecture, “Some Thoughts on the Science of Onanism”.
Volcanos—Wrath of Gaia or Handmaidens of Darwin?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 11 05 at 10:52 AM • permalink#2 It’s not easy being Chicken Little these days, I guess.
Diddums chickens. They could aleays have a go at trying to get a real job I suppose. Ya know, one that helps run the economy or something.
Posted by ThinAndBritish on 2007 11 05 at 12:14 PM • permalinkNicely put, Mr. Bingley! Maybe they should emulate the boy who cried wolf…..with a little luck, they might get chomped on.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 11 05 at 12:22 PM • permalinkPlus….spot on, Zoe! I have the same problem in engineering. Everyone wants their two bits injected into every project because they think their opinion controls.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 11 05 at 12:25 PM • permalinkStop lying and we’ll stop treating you like liars, it’s not like it’s anything as complex as climatology.
Posted by Aging Gamer on 2007 11 05 at 01:47 PM • permalink...unpredictable nature…
Nature unpredictable? That can’t be right.
Posted by Mystery Meat on 2007 11 05 at 02:07 PM • permalinkHey, scientists! Here’s a news flash for you: While you were earnestly discussing this issue, you were not doing any science. And that is the problem. You lot are far too concerned with getting the public to listen to you and do what you say (i.e., politics), when you should be focusing your efforts on what science used to be about—namely, studying the physical world, figuring out what the facts are, and reporting them in the most objective way possible.
You want us to respect you again? Stop preening in the goddamn mirror and get back to work.
When scientists stop saying that things are DEFINITELY one way, only to come back a year later and say that it is not DEFINITELY another way all together, we might start trusting them again. They need to start using the old “our research indicates that X might be being caused by Y” again.
Posted by MikeTheLibrarian on 2007 11 05 at 04:43 PM • permalinkmuch of the public no longer implicitly trusts either scientists or their pronouncements
That strikes at the very heart of the scientific method:
1) Scientist makes hypothesis
2) Public implicitly trusts hypothesisAs a non-scientist once said about people with the same politics as Mr Bud’s buds, “trust, but verify.”
From the link:
As further evidence of how seriously this angst is being taken, the Toronto meeting came on the heels of publication of a seven-point ethics code for research scientists portrayed as the counterpart of the Hippocratic Oath for physicians.
This new code already binds all government scientists in Britain, where it was developed, and is being promoted worldwide by Sir David King, the U.K. government chief scientific advisor.
“We want to get the idea across to the public that scientists can be trusted,” King told an interviewer, “if they live by the code.”
Now isn’t this dandy from David King! But ... wondering what this little gem is about, a search produced this:
The Code:
1. Act with skill and care, keep skills up to date
2. Prevent corrupt practice and declare conflicts of interest
3. Respect and acknowledge the work of other scientists
4. Ensure that research is justified and lawful
5. Minimise impacts on people, animals and the environment
6. Discuss issues science raises for society
7. Do not mislead; present evidence honestlyNow isn’t this lovely but I wonder how David King, UK Chief Scientist stacks up against his own code?
A few quotes:
“If no action is taken [on climate change] we will be faced with an economic downturn of the kind that we haven’t seen since the great depression and the two world wars.”
“By 2100, sea level rise will threaten 100 million people because a large percentage of our population live on the coastline.”
“A recent MORI poll showed that 92% surveyed thought that, yes, they felt that global warming was a serious problem.”
Sure, sure, sure… Hmmm, well I say his comments immediately fail points 1, 4, 5, and 7 and they may even fail the others. But of course King’s code, if adopted, could be used as a hammer to silence dissent - see point 3. Why else have a code when one is not needed?
Here’s another take.
One other point - what would happen to the Scientists who don’t sign up? Ostracised from the consensus perhaps?
#23
Oh, Wand - that code is just for sceptics. It doesn’t apply to the true believers.
Posted by mr creosote on 2007 11 05 at 06:03 PM • permalinkNo.2 in the code - “declare conflicts of interest” - would straight away knock out James Hansen, Tim Flannery, and anyone else whose funding/income would decrease if they stopped prophesying doomsday.
It’s not just the climate. Various “scientific” health scares over the years have done a lot to soften public faith in the scientific establishment. Eggs/chocolate/red wine are good/bad/good for you, etc. The latest scare about red meat and cancer just has everyone I know - even the ones who read Choice - guffawing and rolling their eyes.
#26 Cuckoo, I saw the snippets about the red meat giving you cancer on the ads for the news last week and declined to follow that up.
We don’t eat a whole lot of red meat here, but I wish they’d stop the scare-mongering and let us just get on with life.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2007 11 05 at 07:47 PM • permalinkmuch of the public no longer implicitly trusts either scientists or their pronouncements
Bud is one of the stupid irresponsible shits responsible for this. He is a misanthrope and a global warming hysteric. He is right to be terrified by the sqawking masses murmuring bullshit. They may want their science grant money back.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 11 05 at 08:27 PM • permalink5
Said curator Rob (“Bobby”) Bud,
As his jaw hit the floor with a thud,
“The public all think,
That our theories stink,
Our prestige has turned into Rud!”There. Fixed.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 11 05 at 08:29 PM • permalinkJames Hansen, the handmaiden of Hysteria.
Ah, poor Hysteria, I knew her well. She was swell, then she had a Hysteriarectomy. And no one came to the global warming party after that. Shame.
Truth is, in 10 years, max, time all these hysterics will be claiming they were the first to voice doubts. Frankly, I don’t understand why they haven’t already started as the planet has not “warmed”, even by official numbers, since 1998.
I shall remember. I shall accuse them. Of stupidity and foolishness. I will laugh them to Oproborium, which is just outside of Basingstoke.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 11 05 at 09:03 PM • permalinkWimpy,
Basingstoke it is.Then make it so.
But surely you meant Opprobium. A splendid place for the likes of Hanson, Flannery et al. We must remember to send the Gorebot there too.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2007 11 06 at 01:19 AM • permalinkThere are a lot of reasons why people mistrust science, but the primary reason is because scientists keep demanding that people trust them, instead of showing proof of their work. This happens because an increasing percentage of “scientists” are not actually performing any sort of scientific experimentation, but rather just going to college long enough to memorize a polysyllabic vocabulary, and then using technobabble to sell snake oil to the locals.
Personally, I don’t see mistrust of science as a bad thing. A true scientist can always prove his work, without requiring trust. A scientist who demands trust is a scientist with too much emotional attachment to his agenda to be trusted.
Posted by Tatterdemalian on 2007 11 06 at 09:51 AM • permalink“Public lost faith in scientists when they started looking for grant money instead of answers.”
You know, there is a lot of that going around everywhere these days. Not just in science, but in politics, in entertainment, even in our local communities. The public in general has stopped looking for ways to make money, and is increasingly looking for ways to extract existing wealth from others. Scientists no longer perform science, but advocate political positions that keep the grant money rolling in. We elect politicians based not on their competance or integrity, but on their ability to acquire a cut of federal, state, and corporate money, and how much they funnel into pork projects that make their district look nicer. Artists actually see receiving millions of dollars for producing nothing new as their fundamental right, and spend all their time trying to prevent the inevitable digital redistribution of their past works instead of creating new ones.
Seriously, that mindset is where all our problems are coming from. Fewer and fewer people are trying to create anything worthwhile, and more and more people are instead trying to get a piece of the pies others bake.
Posted by Tatterdemalian on 2007 11 06 at 10:06 AM • permalinkThe problem is too many scientists thought they could succeed as public intellectuals, and they did so at a time when the whole concept of “public intellectual” is going away.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and too many scientists don’t quite get the idea that people aren’t going to trust that fancy sheepskin on the wall and a CV listing a ton impenetrable articles enough to make multi-trillion-dollar decisions just on their say-so.
Posted by Foobarista on 2007 11 07 at 06:22 PM • permalink
Page 1 of 1 pages
Members:
Login | Register
| Member List
Science has changed a little, the Curies died for their cause, todays scientists wants us to die for theirs.