this post was submitted on 25 May 2024

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Science Memes

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Big Science (mander.xyz)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[+] [email protected] 31 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I completely agree. A lot of the time “I believe in science” is usually used in reference to comparing it to feelings or faith, and in those cases it makes sense to say you trust science over someone’s gut feeling or their “own research”. If you are someone who just blindly goes around proclaiming “I believe in science” then you need to go back to school and take a critical thinking course.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Critical thinking courses would indeed be very great to have.

Mere factual knowledge transfer is not effective in forming mature and responsible minds if critical thinking is not a focus of education as well.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

I have been wishing that Formal Logic was a K-12 class like English.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Depends on your audience.

If your audience is stupid, tell them to stfu and listen to the science. They're too dumb to think about why they believe anything, they just need to be told what to believe. So as a bulwark against religious superstition, you tell them to stfu and listen to science.

If your audience is intelligent, then there's no risk of them being suckered in by religious superstition, then you can have a discussion about the merits and processes of current scientific methods and theories, differing viewpoints, and degrees of confidence in the scientific community.

This applies to a lot of topics.

Talking to a stupid independent voter? "Vote for Biden or Trump will destroy democracy." Talking to a smart independent voter? "Biden is definitely wrong on several issues, we should try to push him in a better direction."

Talking to a stupid computer user? "Don't try to change any of these files." Talking to a smart computer user? "Here's what happens when you change these files."

To a stupid person, about the economy: "listen to the data!"

To a smart person, about the economy: "The metrics which the CPI uses are flawed."

Etc etc. There's always a complex, nuanced, correct answer, and a simple, straightforward, wrong answer. Because reality is complicated. So for stupid people you give them a simple, straightforward, mostly true answer to combat the simple, straightforward false one vying for their pair of brain cells.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

What is "dumb"? What is "intelligence"?

I think, as long as people have normally functioning brains, it is possible for them to understand. And I think nurturing critical thinking is an important aspect of how to approach this.

You can absolutely present a complicated topic to someone who isn't educated in that field, or even has low education at all, if you are being humble about how you explain it and try to meet them at eye-level.

You don't need to give definitive answers, you may give recommendations, but you can always explain a bit and note that there is also a lot more to it than what you explained and that one must take care before making some further conclusions.
Interested people in your audience then have some first basis and grasp of a topic and can take it up on themselves to dive deeper; for example, by asking questions or finding further sources (you might refer them to these).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

You can absolutely present a complicated topic to someone who isn’t educated in that field, or even has low education at all, if you are being humble about how you explain it and try to meet them at eye-level.

I vehemently disagree. Some people (maybe most people) are too stupid to understand nuance. They need to be told what to think.

Perhaps this is just a failing of our educational system and not a fact of human psychology, but it's still the condition of the world today.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Though the first is abused to death, yes, I vehemently disagree with the second. I do believe in science. Just because here and there there are cheaters doesn't mean that science is valid. Cheaters eventually get caught and science continues. Because of science you have that phone in your hand on which you write your post and read my comment, because of science you are alive. Science is trying to find out what is and why.

I believe in science and there is nothing scary about that.