Easier said than done. Sadly, when we are told primly to “trust the science,” it is nearly always the case that the persons demanding the trust means by “the science” whatever science happens to support their position. One thing the COVID pandemic did was make a far greater proportion of the public aware of that meaning of “trust the science” than was the case in the past. For better or worse.
Science
At Mind Matters News: Longtime skeptic now accepts parapsychology as science
It may be that a more correct account of many paranormal claims will turn out to be something like this: The mind, while dependent on the brain for its existence in our frame of reality, is not wholly tethered to it on a one-on-one basis. If the mind is not simply “what the brain does” epiphenhomenalism), we can make more sense of these facts and perhaps of many paranormal claims.
Trust in science: How the replication crisis got started
Sarah Perry: In my experience, it is the norm, rather than the exception, for cited claims in popular science books and review papers to misstate the claims of their sources.
At The Ness: Science is not Just Philosophy
Wait. If atheist neurologist blogger Steven Novella is right, the science presenters in media must be speaking a different language from the rest of us. The impression that he says they don’t convey (“insight into the ultimate nature of reality”), they in fact do — by a variety of means. That’s okay, of course, until the whipped cream hits the fan.
At Lancet: An appeal for an honest debate in science about the origin of COVID-19
We wish Jacques van Helden and his co-authors good luck getting an honest discussion going. It’s not like China is going to become transparent anytime soon. In any event, few virus researchers would want to be told bluntly that, because gain-of-function research in viruses can go badly wrong, they now face controls. Some nations wouldn’t heed the controls. And nature never responds – on her own – to calls for clarification. Most likely, whatever happened with COVID will need to happen again a few more times until a pattern develops. Then we’ll see. It doesn’t help that Lancet itself became politicized in recent years.
Policy analyst: More funding is not going to solve current science problems
Two thoughts: Unclear what Dr. Mills means by a “so-called” “replication crisis.” There IS a replication crisis. They can call it an ice cream cone if they want. Second, more funding, under the circumstances, not only “could” make the problems worse; they almost certainly WILL do so. If systemic issues are not addressed, more funding helps magnify the problem. It’s like giving a gambling addict more money.
At least, the “science of obesity” is now a legitimate topic of discussion
Another well-known science writer, Ross Pomeroy, says Gary Taubes is wrong. It is a good thing we get to hear both sides of the argument. That is not happening often enough. People who complain about popular doubt or denial of science are too often among the first to demand that only their side of the argument be published — thus fueling the very thing they complain about.
When people claim that “the science” says this or that…
Discussing the recent essay by medical statistician John Ioannidis on the was politicization and shoddy research around COVID-19 are corrupting science, philosopher Edward Feser focuses on a couple of his points, including this one, “the deleterious role that social media have played.”
New Video Presentation on YouTube: Intelligent Design & Scientific Conservatism
I have recently posted a new video on my Intelligent Design YouTube channel. In this video I discuss several areas in the philosophy of science and modern evolutionary biology, and their relationship to ID. These thoughts were prompted initially by an interesting paper by philosopher of science Jeffrey Koperski ‘Two Bad Ways to Attack Intelligent Read More…
Why it’s okay for Rolling Stone to write false stories about a drug called Ivermectin
Much that happens in media today is not about what happened. It’s about Hot Hair and Big Lipstick posing as news. Readers, they don’t need you. And you don’t need them. We all have the internet.
The religious dimensions of Darwinian evolution theory
What about this? Darwinism was the way an imperial British culture justified its rule over the “lesser breeds without the law?” That really was how they did see it all. And Darwinism was perfect for the purpose.
Science, science denial, and popular neuroses
There is a finger on the scale! Suppose, listening to the evidence around COVID-19, I reasonably believed that it originated in a lab in Wuhan (China) which was doing experiments that the local people were not qualified to be doing? So then, are the bureaucrats “pro-science” and the rest of us “anti-science”?
Eric Holloway: Why is randomness a good model, but not a good explanation?
After all, he argues, random processes are used all the time to model things in science: When we test a sequence of numbers for randomness, we are essentially testing how easy it is to predict the sequence of numbers. One of the simplest tests is to measure how frequently heads and tails occur during a Read More…
Darwinian evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne speaks out on the war on math
Some of us remember when Darwinian commenters chided us for writing about the war on math and the war on science. Now that Jerry Coyne is starting to talk about it, will they start to listen?
Spare a thought for Afghanistan’s terrified scientists
They had hoped for a world that was ultimately denied them.