In fact, during the COVID crisis, a great deal of the blather for science made no sense at all, a fact that is becoming more and more evident. People won’t immediately give up believing in science as a result. Rather, they will begin to treat it as the superstition of the social elite. It doesn’t make sense and doesn’t need to. It is wisely got around wherever possible.That’s not what science used to be but that;s what many policy decisions have made it.
Tag: trust
At The Scientist: “… who will believe us again?”
One gets the feeling that many science boffins don’t “get” what is happening. It won’t be easy to make “Trust the science” mean what it used to. On the ground, it now means something between “Sign on to this superstition rather than that one.” and “Do what you’re told or else!”
At ACSH: Understanding the loss of credibility of expert opinion, post-COVID-19
Berezow: A loss of credibility, therefore, happens for other reasons. In the case of coronavirus, we believe there are five reasons: Incompetence, waffling, moving the goalposts, disregarding unintended consequences, and being political.
Trust in science remains high among Americans; intergroup differences not large
Clearly, there’s no war on science as such but when something sounds unbelievable, people tend not to believe it.
Why people don’t “trust science”: The “Cancer Personality”
Some of us remember the spate of sciencey articles that appeared in women’s mags on the cancer-prone personality. It sounded wrong at the time. Many of us knew so many people who had died of cancer who didn’t fit the type at all.
Science today: Apologies required for stating the obvious about numbers
A Japanese official has been forced to apologize for stating the obvious. Japan’s population is shrinking because people aren’t having enough children.
Why, in many cases, you’d be a fool to “trust science”
If you also think that data is a source of information, that is. And have to live in the real world. … a survey of 479 sociology professors found that only 4 per cent identified as conservative or libertarian, while 83 per cent identified as liberal or left-radical. In another survey — of psychologists this Read More…