Can we trust modern science?

[anthson]

Spawned off from another thread where the discussion was getting off-topic.

Originally posted by Maelgrim
Look at all the scientists hired by phillip morris et al back when 'Is smoking bad for you' was actually a question. Their advertising and marketing campaigns produced findings from reputable establishments with titles as long as my leg saying that smoking was not harmful. My favorite was the chesterfield ad where they proudly announced 'our six month survey shows that people who smoked chesterfields showed no sign of disease or deterioration in the mouth, throat, nose, or associated organs.' when of course we know today that smoking damage is most frequently the result of years of accumulated damage.

That's modern science's biggest downfall, if you ask me. A biologist takes a look at small changes in bacteria, calls it evolution, and concludes the changes will keep happening until that bacteria turns into a kitten. Chesterfield scientists study smokers for six months and conclude smoking produces zero adverse health effects. Weather/climate analysts (and Al Gore) observe a very small change in average temperature and make long-term projections that ASSUME trends will continue. In all three cases there obviously are more things to accent those particular stances that were taken, but the point still remains.

If we're talking common sense and critical thinking here, why can't we teach our scientists to quit assuming trends will continue the way they are (or retrospectively, that trends have continued the same way throughout all of time in the same manner they are continuing today).

At 25 years of age, I don't have to look far back in history to understand how wrong science keeps getting it over and over. Health is one area no one appears to know much on. We've discovered modern miracles like heart surgery, I'll give the scientific medical community that. But for all their achievements in solving problems in order to keep people alive, medical science still can't get it right on some very basic points. Prepare for elaboration.

List of things I can remember off the top of my head:

• Eggs are good for you.
• Coffee is bad for you.
• Butter is terrible for you, so eat margarine.
• Eggs are bad for you.
• Alcohol is bad for you.
• Coffee actually can be good for you. Kind of.
• Look, eggs are GOOD for you. Okay? Eat them with some margarine.
• It turns out wine actually is good for your heart. Kind of.
• I know we said eggs were bad, but they're good. At least the white is good. The yellow? It'll kill you. Don't eat that. Also margarine may be kind of bad for you with all those hydrogenated oils and stuff.
• No, coffee really is just bad for you all around. Unless you're dying of thirst.
• Eat and drink whatever you want because really the Earth is going to fry and drown under melted ice caps soon, anyway.

Health is just one area I cared to mention. I know of several other branches of science that have continually throughout history gotten things wrong time and time again. Their story is always the same: "Well, we know why we had it wrong back then. We've fixed that now and we've got it all right today." The science of the day and age always assumes it is living in the pinnacle of understanding. Even in heart surgery, science used to tell doctors to never touch the heart unless they wanted to kill their patients. It took someone coming along with radical ideas to change things for the better.

[Malacasta]

Just a really quick reply in case I don't have time to reply later.

Look, things can be complicated. Coffee can be really bad for your teeth or whatever, and good at stopping skin cancer or Alzheimer's. Eggs can be a great source of protein and an excellent whole food for babies, but it might increase bad cholesterols.

While (as said in another thread) reporting in the media can exaggerate some aspects of a study, or ignore other studies that are less than sexy, or publish two seemingly contradictory studies on the exact same food side by side without even noticing, a certain amount of responsibility for interpretation rests on you, the consumer.

If you have low blood pressure, and your whole family has always had low blood pressure, then maybe salt isn't a critical thing to watch in your diet (for example). Where as, if your whole family died of smoking related illnesses, then it might be sensible for you to avoid passive smoking at all costs.

If you care about your health enough to listen to medical advice, then you should read with a critical mind, and perhaps talk these things over with your GP or read medical journals (which sensationalize their results less than the msm).

I just don't understand why you keep posting these sort of things, Anthson. Science and scientific method has been responsible for revolutionizing the quality of life of humans. Yes, there have been serious fuckups, probably in every field of science, which ended in misery or death, but if you want to throw away the baby with the bathwater, then I think your life expectancy will be what? Another four years or so?

What are you hoping to gain by trying to convince us that science is a fraud?

[Dalaena]

Originally posted by anthson

If we're talking common sense and critical thinking here, why can't we teach our scientists to quit assuming trends will continue the way they are (or retrospectively, that trends have continued the same way throughout all of time in the same manner they are continuing today).

[snip]

At 25 years of age, I don't have to look far back in history to understand how wrong science keeps getting it over and over. Health is one area no one appears to know much on. We've discovered modern miracles like heart surgery, I'll give the scientific medical community that. But for all their achievements in solving problems in order to keep people alive, medical science still can't get it right on some very basic points. Prepare for elaboration.

I think your points show an inherent lack of understanding of science and the scientific method. Science is about postulating and using your imagination in order to first GUESS at how something came to be or why something is the way it is. Then the scientists (and often the scientific community) actually goes about trying to prove it wrong. Once something is proven wrong, you then adjust your postulate and go back to trying to prove it wrong. Granted, scientists are human beings, and sometimes they go about trying to find things to support their theory as well.

Your examples (eggs, coffee, etc.) are not pure science. Health is more in the realm of medicine which as a lot of science in it, but it's not a pure science. You're also dealing with a TON of commercialism there because egg producers fund projects that find in favor of eggs, and people who make egg substitutes argue how much cholesterol eggs have for us.

Science is about trying to find out about the world around us. A LOT of it is going to be about guessing. Instead of simply making up stories about world floods and parting seas, science goes about it with a method that has been refined over several thousands of years, but our science is never going to be ahead of our imagination.

You cannot expect people, namely scientists, to be God and know exactly how things operate the moment their ideas are conceived. You also can't mistake commercial ventures and advertisements to be pure science. Lastly, with as many people involved in the realm of science, you have to understand the multitude of ideas being proposed and studied every day.

Originally posted by anthson

It took someone coming along with radical ideas to change things for the better.

This last point doesn't really seem to fit into your post, so honestly, it makes me wonder why you posted in the first place. What do you think that scientists are doing? They're presenting TONS of radical ideas to try and explain the world, and in explaining the world, the by-products of their experiments have made our lives better and sometimes, it has made our lives worse. It's how PEOPLE use science that makes it what it is.

You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.

[kestra]

You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs

Mmmm......omelettes.

I for one was waiting to read "now if you read the bible, it'll prove that........" in the original post.
Thankfully, that didn't happen.

Scientific study will always be flawed in one manner or another. What is important is the pursuit of the truth. Sadly, humanity's lust for control and interpretation of the "truth" will always be a threat from those in power.

"Through this world I stumbled, so many times betrayed. Trying to find an honest word only to find the truth enslaved"--Sarah McLachlan

[anthson]

I don't think science is a fraud, so I'd be a bad person to go to if you wanted to convince others that it is. I'd only go as far as to say I don't automatically trust what science often tells us. This goes back to the global warming debate where I see a large number of scientists just plain getting it wrong. They study a small amount of data, make large assumptions, and then make projections based on those assumptions. The egg stuff was just an example. I see this happen a lot and science keeps recanting, revising, and altering its standpoints on a fairly regular basis. Just look at how often the age of the earth keeps changing. I believe in the 1950s or so scientists had it aged at half of what they do today.

Some people are saying constant recants and revision are good for the scientific process. I would agree they are, but only if the conclusion was junk to begin with. I see a lot of junk conclusions. I don't have to be a scientist to figure out that these folks regularly admit they didn't know what they were talking about 20 years ago. I guess it's all harmless, good, and well until science starts using its conclusions to push an agenda of any kind. I'm not willing to adjust my life in a major way based of the conclusions of a group of folks that often radically modify their own conclusions.

So to answer the question I posted ... Can we trust modern science? No. Not religiously, anyway. I think we have to realize things can be complicated and that we have to use scientific conclusions to make up our own minds about things.

Originally posted by Malacasta
I just don't understand why you keep posting these sort of things, Anthson.

Why not? It's harmless, isn't it? Really the discussion predated this post in the global warming thread. The argument went "science says [insert thing about] global warming is real because of these studies" and then on to "you can't trust science because of [insert untrustworthy thingies] so therefore your argument is moot." Rather than derail the discussion from global warming and into whether or not you can trust modern science, I made this post.

It's not so bad, is it?

[Metiao]

I agree that some things that they come out with is a step right out of left field.

For example, I heard somewhere, something about Pluto not being a planet. How can it be a planet for so long and all of a sudden NOT be a planet? I didn't look into it so I don't know if they are actually not considering it a planet anymore, or if some jerk off reporter misunderstood what someone said, and ran with it.

Times are always going to be changing, and with that change will come new evidence of something being good for you one day and bad the next. But hey, that's life. You've got to roll with the punches.

Not to mention, on the medical side of this, it's going to be very hard to say that Option A is the right way for everyone. There's no way you can do that. What's a life saving/best medicine for one person may kill another.

[Caer]

Originally posted by anthson
They study a small amount of data, make large assumptions, and then make projections based on those assumptions.

I see this happen a lot and science keeps recanting, revising, and altering its standpoints on a fairly regular basis.

Some people are saying constant recants and revision are good for the scientific process. I would agree they are, but only if the conclusion was junk to begin with. I see a lot of junk conclusions. I don't have to be a scientist to figure out that these folks regularly admit they didn't know what they were talking about 20 years ago.

I guess it's all harmless, good, and well until science starts using its conclusions to push an agenda of any kind.

Okay, I'm not sure where to start without stating that you just don't get it. However, it is clear you do not understand certain elements of how science really "works". I can see where a person unfamiliar with the scientific process might see such points as those above as reason to not trust science. However, it is precisely this constant "recanting, revising, and altering standpoints" that makes science trustworthy. For ease of posting, I will address these points in bulletin format:

1) On the "small amount of data, large assumptions, and projections" assertion: This is a gross simplification of the process that misses some critical points. Data can be small or large, stringently collected or not, biased or not, and so forth. Those scientists who follow accepted methodology (methods of collecting and analyzing data) will minimize biases and errors in their data. Those who do not are unlikely to have their works published in reputable, peer-reviewed journals. Assumptions and projections are made based on the available knowledge base. Obviously, these will only be as good as the current knowledge. More on this point in a moment. It is important to realize that assumptions must be based on verifiable observations - they are not just pulled out of the air. Unfortunately, without a full understanding of how one arrives at a conclusion based on data, it is very easy to misinterpret the results. This is what we see often in popular media. Perhaps it is something that scientists could strive to improve (i.e., making research more "user-friendly"), but ultimately, when one's audience is primarily other scientists, it is easier and sometimes more accurate to present findings in commonly accepted terms (within the field).

2) On the issue of "recanting, revising, and altering standpoints": This is the -basis- of science. It does not mean that former conclusions were "junk to begin with". It means that former conclusions were based on the best available knowledge at that time, and through new data, better collection methods, better analysis tools, and so forth, we discover new information and must revise earlier conclusions. One of the very first things drilled into us in science is that you cannot prove anything is true. You can only prove it is false. This means that conclusions are only meant to be accepted until further knowledge indicates otherwise. Our basic goal is to criticize and challenge everything, because that is the only way to further and improve knowledge of the world. Again, part of the problem with the popular media, is that scientific results are presented as if they are definitive when most scientists would tell you otherwise.

3) And finally, on the issue of science "pushing an agenda": I think this is a major confusion of who the agenda actually belongs to. Yes, it is true that some who profess themselves to be scientists have an agenda. Yes, scientists all start from beliefs that may color their results in a number of ways. However, when it comes to actually pushing an agenda, most scientists simply are not. More often than not, those with agendas latch onto science and use research results to fit their own purposes.

4) As a final point, it is important to clearly define what a "scientist" is, and what constitutes "science". Some of the criticism here seems to include those "scientists" who are funded by corportations that do clearly have an agenda, as well as including reports of "science" in the popular media that often are not accurate reports. What I describe above deals primarily with science in academia. Most research that comes out of academia is solid, unbiased, is not out to aid some agenda, and not often read or reported outside of academia or related fields. There are many checks and balances in place within the research community that are designed to ensure that only "good" research gets published. As I mentioned before, those who do not follow the accepted standards for conducting research will not get published and therefore will not add to the knowledge base.

As to the overall question of whether or not science can be "trusted", I still say yes. However, it is important to base this trust in an understanding of how science really "works". Without this understanding, it is easy to become disillusioned with the process. One must approach all aspects of science critically, from how data was gathered, to how it was analyzed, to the conclusions drawn from analysis. Through doing so, you will be able to uncover biases and error in the research, and consider which aspects of the results are still valid. This part of what being scientific is.

[Katidyd]

What makes the science trustworthy is it has endured years of study from a variety of groups. We go back to the theory of evolution. Some people say it's "just a theory" and dismiss it. But its core concept has endured 200 years of research.

Eggs are bad, coffee is bad, milk is bad, etc. these are entertaining but holds no scientific truth because its commercialism is so obvious. Just use common sense, eat a balanced meal and you'll be fine. Unfortunately many people do not eat a balanced meal so the studies are inherently flawed. As the audience it is your job to read more than the sensationalized headliners.

[Katidyd]

Originally posted by Metiao

For example, I heard somewhere, something about Pluto not being a planet. How can it be a planet for so long and all of a sudden NOT be a planet? I didn't look into it so I don't know if they are actually not considering it a planet anymore, or if some jerk off reporter misunderstood what someone said, and ran with it.

This was a fun moment in science. They discovered Xena, a smaller "planet" beyond Pluto that touched off the debate over the definition of a planet. Pluto was voted off the list. It's now a dwarf planet. Woo dwarfs! (or Little Planets to be PC)

[Graeblyn]

Originally posted by anthson
So to answer the question I posted ... Can we trust modern science? No. Not religiously, anyway.

I would suggest people read the above carefully before spending a great deal of time trying to argue this subject with Anthson. As his religious beliefs preclude trust in science, it is a waste of time using anything but the bible to convince him to change his mind.