Scientists Seen As Competent But Not Trusted By Americans 460
cold fjord writes The Woodrow Wilson School reports, "If scientists want the public to trust their research suggestions, they may want to appear a bit 'warmer,' according to a new review published by Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The review, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), shows that while Americans view scientists as competent, they are not entirely trusted. This may be because they are not perceived to be friendly or warm. In particular, Americans seem wary of researchers seeking grant funding and do not trust scientists pushing persuasive agendas. Instead, the public leans toward impartiality. 'Scientists have earned the respect of Americans but not necessarily their trust,' said lead author Susan Fiske, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and professor of public affairs. 'But this gap can be filled by showing concern for humanity and the environment. Rather than persuading, scientists may better serve citizens by discussing, teaching and sharing information to convey trustworthy intentions.'"
Fox News? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fox news goes on and on to perpetuate the idea that scientists would rather be shamed and discredited by releasing junk science to receive grant money than be honored as brilliant to discover something profound. I swear those people are nitwits.
Re:Fox News? (Score:5, Insightful)
^^This
The fact that a good chunk of the population has been repeatedly fed that scientists are every bit as corrupt as the politicians (and ironically enough, the big money backers) that they'd compromise their standards for cash has done more damage than and lack of personability or "warmness."
Re:Fox News? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think there's a bigger problem. The US is a nation of rebels. We almost all see ourselves rebelling against [insert personal selection of powerful entities in the country here]. And we tend to see the people rebelling against something substantially different as being aligned with [our evil of choice]. Christians rebelling against secular satanists, atheists rebelling against Christian hegemony. Racist fucks rebelling against the "PC police", minorities and allies rebelling against bigoted fuckwads.
I'm not saying that every group has an accurate perception of the things they're rebelling against, nor am I saying that rebellion is entirely unwarranted. Just that "Not trusting" scientists occurs because they're "the system" to certain groups.
Re:Fox News? (Score:5, Insightful)
If we were a nation of rebels we'd have lined our telecom exec's and board members against a wall and shot them, mulched them and prepared the wall for RIAA/MPAA/IP activists, and finally have led violent revolt against pretty much everyone in congress.
Instead we bend over backwards to accomodate dysfunctional, greedy monopolies. Watch idly as 12yo's are prosecuted for "piracy" and vote the same clowns in again.
We haven't been rebels in a real long time.
Re:Fox News? (Score:4, Insightful)
You misunderstand. We're not good rebels, who get things done(and I'm kinda thankful for that, many rebellions end up with pretty awful results). We're rebels in the sense that we see ourselves on the vanguard of seeing the bad people for what they are.
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Re:Fox News? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you're mistaking intelligence and expertise. I'm a very intelligent person(yeah yeah, everyone thinks this, especially on the internet), but I wouldn't even remotely confuse that for the expertise in any arbitrary field I only have a passing knowledge of that other people have developed for decades. I understand calculus based physics pretty well, and the premises of quantum mechanics pretty well for a layman, but I wouldn't pretend I have the expertise to design a supercollider experiment.
I wouldn't trust myself to make an accurate medical diagnosis of anything. I wouldn't even think of representing myself in court(except maybe small claims).
So when my Doctor says "Take these pills" I might have curiosity about what they do, learn what I can about them, but I'm not going to "You don't know more than me!" If my lawyer says "No, seriously, plead no contest, it's not worth it", I might ask what the risks are and why not "Not guilty", but I'm not going to pretend to have the familiarity with the court system, and judges, and juries, and the results of similar cases that he does.
It's not a "need to be led", but the recognition of human limitations. You can only get so much from reading in your spare time. You can only manage to be a true expert in about 5-10 things in your lifetime, and that's if you spend literally all your time becoming an expert in those things.
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I like the fact that "sumdumass" was able to give this reply to "a very intelligent person"...
Re:Fox News? (Score:5, Insightful)
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It also gives the parents a whole weekend to recover before the man has to go back to work.
What you need to reinforce your claim is a breakdown of c-sections planned for a Friday in advance, and those that get scheduled *that day* on a Friday.
That said, I agree with the need to question your doctor. But your example sucks.
Intelligent Leaders verses Intelligent Scientists (Score:5, Insightful)
An intelligent leader does not need to be a scientist, however, an intelligent leader needs to be scientifically literate. I feel that the lack of scientific literacy and statistical literacy as a whole has created a great gap between understanding what is going on and trusting people who have the bests interests of the people at heart. However, some exceptions exist. I honestly feel Pope Francis has been one of the best leaders of the Catholic church in the last century. I don't know if he will exceed Pope John Paul II or not, but in a short time, he has undone a lot of damage that his predecessor did. I feel his scientific background has assisted in this.
On top of that, we have an economy built on short term gains. This has created a lot of negative perceptions on things that need to be done. We can't push alternative energy because we will destroy the economy, but China and Germany have been doing just that and their economies are booming.
Sadly, what we are being told by this study is that our researchers need a PR team. Everyone can imagine what that will do to the cost of research and development. On a positive note, we might now have justification for employing the people who spent all of that time getting marketing degrees.
Re: Rebels (Score:5, Funny)
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Well, in all fairness, things like a certain stem cell paper recently published and retracted does a hell of a lot more to convince me of corruption in academia than anything Fox News has ever published.
Re:Fox News? (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean the corruption that was quickly discredited? That corruption? Working as designed. Try as they may, the climate scientists can't be discredited. Fox refuses to acknowledge that.
Re:Fox News? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fox News? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think that critical thinking skills are something that scientists cannot trust American citizens to have. We are lead to believe that someone would have around 16 years of higher education, and take a job that pays at least a third of what they could make with the math and technical skills if they became stock brokers or media pundits -- and they do all this so they can lie about a passion for seeking truth and knowledge. It shows a complete lack of empathy or understanding of human nature.
If I'm wanting to rip people off, I'll open a pay-day loan or a bank and charge bounce fees to poor people -- I don't need to waste time with difficult science to fudge a climate report in the desperate hope of getting a meager research grant.
The Crooks that own the media and hire think tanks to make every controversy like dealing with the Tobacco industry -- they are to blame. They are a cancer on society. We have to do something about these idle, useless rich people gaming the system to ruin it for everyone else. What, are they not able to afford a prostitute and enough steak to eat? These entitled parasites need to be shut down. We face a few existential crisis right now but we can't deal with Climate Change or the end of cheap labor (replaced by robots) because money owns politics and the media.
Re:Fox News? (Score:5, Informative)
No, YOU must have missed the whole Climategate thing.
Eight committees investigated the allegations and published reports, finding no evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]
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The fact that a good chunk of scientists are just that corrupt doesn't help either.
And most of those are the ones actively discrediting the 'good' ones because they've been paid off by the fossil fuel industry.
Seriously though, what evidence do you have that 'a good chunk' are corrupt?
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The fact that a good chunk of scientists are just that corrupt doesn't help either.
And most of those are the ones actively discrediting the 'good' ones because they've been paid off by the fossil fuel industry.
Seriously though, what evidence do you have that 'a good chunk' are corrupt?
A good deal of offal pulled from the nether regions of highly paid media pundits and think tanks.The fact that some people suspect the average scientist MORE than people who MAKE A PROFIT from the exact topic they are disparaging tells me that someone spent their money well to make sure people are ignorant.
That isn't to say I don't process what I'm told from all sources with a healthy dose of skepticism and logic. But I don't swat at butterflies all day just in case they might attack. I think I can depend o
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Yes, American scientists seem to be trained in adsvertising their accomplishments too much. When I graduated we were tought to be modest, talk en write mostly factional. An American guest student had the habit of reporting each small result in a way someone else would only do if he truly believed it would earn him a Nobel prize.
Re:Fox News? (Score:5, Interesting)
The press is much to blame, never checking qualifications or accomplishments when reporting the work of so called 'scientists". Due to that, so much bullshit is promulgated that never comes to fruition, people naturally become skeptical. Promises of fuel cell being ready for mass adoption, promises of medical cures on the way, etc.
The media should also distinguish between engineers and scientists, but the fact they never do is a great indicator that they don't have a clue. That falls back on the technology and science reporters themselves often being quite unqualified.
Re:Fox News? (Score:5, Insightful)
The press is much to blame, never checking qualifications or accomplishments when reporting the work of so called 'scientists". Due to that, so much bullshit is promulgated that never comes to fruition, people naturally become skeptical. Promises of fuel cell being ready for mass adoption, promises of medical cures on the way, etc.
It's even worse that that though -- it's not just that the media doesn't fact check, it's that most media members lack the ability to fact check, as do their audience. It's the game telephone on a national scale, and it's hurting everyone when a rather important but nascent study on polymers gets conflated to "scientists create new ultra-capacity battery purple monkey dishwasher".
The report itself doesn't really focus so much on this disconnect though as much as it the social dynamics of credibility; according to the article, we're trained to focus more on "friend or foe" than "true or not true", and the first challenge in communicating serious scientific advances to people is getting past the friend or foe response. The article refers to Climate Change as an example of this, and it seems true that most people cannot enter into discussions of climate change without there being a political agenda attached.
What this really comes down to is poor logical training -- it's not that people are outright illogical or that science and pure logic are the most ideal way to be (as they aren't), it's that we're just wired to have an emotional investment, and too often, the public gets hurt by this wiring. Rather than take a second to try and see if the content is or is not valid, or to separate the person speaking from the evidence presented, which admittedly can be difficult if you are very invested in a particular belief (political, religious, mystical, personal, and so on). I've always used the example of liking Burzum versus liking/approving of Varg Vikernes and his personal beliefs; you don't need to subscribe to the latter to accept the former.
However, the article just suggests that we can't really get past that friend/foe check.
I think this is really where celebrity scientists (Tyson, Nye, Sagan, Asimov, etc) can really help out everyone. I'm re-reading two of Asimov's books "A short history of [chemistry|biology]" and I think that there needs to be more of this. Asimov was an incredible writer and had a knack for telling a good story, and even better just explaining science simply. Sagan has some fairly poetic ways of describing the universe which spoke to people in an easy way, Bill Nye brought a good sense of entertainment to science and made it fun for kids. The more writing and early exposure people can get to this sort of material, the better people can begin to separate the human behind the science from the evidence presented.
(Of course, this is not to say that scientists are without their own prejudices or agendas; reading the history of chemistry has shown how sometimes a leading scientists' personal agenda stymied progress just because they were perceived as an authority. Everyone, regardless of training, is subject to this bias)
Re:Fox News? (Score:4, Insightful)
How many newspapers and TV news programs gave Wakefield (and even worse, Jenny McCarthy) valuable opportunities to speak publically without challenge, even after it became clear that autism is not caused by vaccines? On the other hand, how many times have they, in the name of "Balance", allowed crackpots to act as foils to certified experts in an area?
How about the cult-worship status of TV stars like Dr. Oz or Dr. Phil who are billed as trustworthy experts despite their lack of qualifications in the area they spend most of their time talking about. Dr. Oz. is not a toxicologist, but that doesn't stop him (or his producers) from putting out BS on the risks of new pesticides about which none of them appear to know anything accurate.
The media needs to be held accountable for spreading bullshit for the sake of increased circulation/clicks. They aren't because of freedom of the press, and I am not opposed to freedoms of the press. As Spider-man would say "with great power comes great responsibility", but the press seems to be allowed to exercise enormous power without being held responsible for the harm they do.
Re:Fox News? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just Fox. It's a problem with journalists in general.
Journalists are taught to present "both sides" of a story. This approach, however, leads to journalists giving charlatans "equal time." Thus, the public wrongly assumes that scientists must be split 50/50 on important issues like climate change. The reality, of course, is that the split is far closer to 99/1 than to 50/50.
The REAL underlying problem is that journalists don't know enough science to be able to spot a crackpot when they see/hear one.
Re:Fox News? (Score:5, Insightful)
>The REAL underlying problem is that journalists don't know enough science to be able to spot a crackpot when they see/hear one.
Don't know, or don't *care*? The major media outlets in this country are all controlled by a very small group of very powerful people with definite agendas, who then send a message down the heirarchy about what kind of behavior is expected. Things like "fair and balanced" reporting of largely one-sided issues is almost certainly one of those things. People who don't trust science are far easier to manipulate after all, regardless of your agenda.
Re:Fox News? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh and how they care! But they care for controversity. A panel discussion with all participants agreeing would sink the ratings.
"Fair and balanced" is not a reminder that you have to hear multiple viewpoints, but an excuse to pit them up agains each other for maximum drama.
Re:Fox News? (Score:5, Interesting)
Most of the bogus scientific breakthroughs are "amazing medical advances" and "promising cancer treatments" that have no business being in the popular media at all - given their untested status at the time they're released. This is largely a media problem (isn't everything these days), driven by an over-competitive media landscape in which consumers' attention is all that matters. But it's also a trap scientists themselves can fall into. There often are large financial involvements at stake, and the media are all too easily manipulated. None of which is to say that the scientific method and peer review don't win out in the end. Science pursues all kinds of dead ends - we're just not supposed to hear about them. And that's not any kind of cover-up; it's how the process works - and it does work.
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Quite so, but might I suggest rephrasing that last line to avoid invoking coverups? After all, even a denial of such a thing reinforces the beliefs of those who are so inclined. try:
Scientists pursue all kinds of potential dead ends - we're just not supposed to take them seriously until they've survived years of peer review and earned acceptance by the broader scientific community.
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The reality, of course, is that the split is far closer to 99/1 than to 50/50.
the manifestation of this by John Oliver [youtube.com]
Re:Fox News? (Score:5, Insightful)
False equivalence. Although equal airtime for all views is silly, Fox intentionally distorts facts and dialog to fit their agenda. WMD's in Iraq? A certainty, well after all the other news outlets have given up on that. Obama a Muslim? Obama not an American citizen (even though the fact that his mother is one made him one). How long did they go on and on about that? Obama a weak socialist tyrant? (How does that even work?) Their news is opinion and their opinion is whatever is the opposite of Obama. It's a crying fucking shame. We need a decent opposition party.
SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid (Score:5, Interesting)
Eh. I don't entirely disagree, but...
It could be Italy, where failing to predict an earthquake lands you in jail.
Or it could be China, where grants don't actually cover the costs of your experiments, and many scientists publish faked results on some work to pay for the science they want to do.
Or it could be Iran, where being a scientists in the wrong field nets you a free gift box of bullets delivered straight to your cranium, courtesy of the CIA(okay that's the US's fault too).
Let's not forget that only few decades ago, in the Soviet Union, several entire schools of academics(like sociology) were considered outright verboten to study, on the grounds that they weren't Marxist.
And the US still has the single biggest science economy in the world, even if that's massively and disproportionately military in nature.
The problems are voters have with understanding and appreciating science definitely hold us back, but it could be a lot worse.
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Whatever, anyone can predict that this will lead to so many false earthquake alarms that no one is going to take them serious anymore.
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As I mentioned before, just a few days: the scientists in Italy are not convicted for not predicting an earthquake, but for having the data of a strong indication for an earth quake and issuing no warning about it to any authority. That is a _huge_ difference!
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Pakistan already has nukes, dog. That ship has sailed.
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And how is this different than any other "developed" nation? Sure, the US has taken "everything is for sale" to an absurd level [politics and religion are also for sale there, let alone mere science] but the plague is spreading everywhere else too...
There is nothing to be done about it. All the advices to scientists to do this or that in order to improve the image and raise awareness are stupid, because we are not fighting people's ignorance here. No, we are fighting propaganda supported by immensely powerf
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>There is nothing to be done about it.
That's a bit defeatist I think. I think you're probably right about the destructive nature of an organiation of scientists - there's a reason for the old saw about how all beuracracies eventually come to work against the principles they were founded on, and intertwining that poison seed with the scientific establishment sounds like an excellent way to undermine scientific credibility in the long term. Especially considering the number of interests who would be spec
Re:SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid (Score:5, Informative)
I pity USA scientists. It must be hard to live and work in a country where the powers that be turned all facts into opinions.
Or worse. Where their "faith" trumps your Facts, Data and empirical evidence.
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Unlike the EU that closes Nuclear plants when the science clearly shows they actually save lives.
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"Unlike the EU that closes Nuclear plants when the science clearly shows they actually save lives."
Strangely enough, the Germans had so much solar and wind power without the nukes, that they exported it to countries for so low a price (sometimes for free) that those countries had to shut down reactors too. Especially the Swiss were not amused.
And the 'saving lives' part I will believe when the ashes are cooled down in 200.000 years without hurting anybody.
And if the sites and the guards will have been paid
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The Japanese might disagree.
Science is not about trust (Score:5, Insightful)
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Science is about reproducible results. Publish the details of your experiment, so I can perform your experiment (and variations on it) myself. Your claim is strengthened if I get the same results you do.
+1, Insightful. How in the hell did you get modded down for this comment?
Re:Science is not about trust (Score:5, Insightful)
>Science is not about trust
Certainly it is - the very core of the scientific method is the peer review which winnows through the morass of contradictory results coming from different inevitably fallible scientists to find the ones that are reproducible - that can be trusted and built upon.
The fact that it's not about trusting individuals, and in fact integrates distrusting them into the very core of it's principles, is what makes the results that survive the gauntlet so much more trustworthy than anything else in the human experience. The most trustworthy individual on the planet is still rife with self-deception and fallibility - science is the art of building knowledge about the universe that's far more trustworthy than the people who built it.
Re:Science is not about trust (Score:4, Informative)
Science is about reproducible results. Publish the details of your experiment, so I can perform your experiment (and variations on it) myself. Your claim is strengthened if I get the same results you do.
But I don't have a Large Hadron Collider! How am I supposed to reproduce this?
The fact is that many experiments are expensive to reproduce and will not be; and there are scientists who do poor work either intentionally or due to institutional reasons. The desire to do great science is only part of the motivation of a scientist; the desire to feed one's family can influence anyone thinking, as can the desire for fame, or other desires.
Addressing the LHC argument - The LHC requires thousands of scientists, the results will be examined to see if they match previous results at the appropriate energies, and it is worth noting that the LHC has detectors ATLAS and CMS which effectively check each others results regarding detection of the Higgs. And there are other detectors looking for new physics, that are not presently worth the cost of double coverage.
I suspect that there are backwaters of science, where someone may find gain in having published many papers, and have low risk of being caught because the value of the results is such that they will not be replicated; but when you cheat like Jan Hendrik Schön with results that would be quite valuable then you can expect work attempting to extend the experiment to be done, and when it fails the original work will be re-checked.
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This is of course true for most expensive experiments. I can't afford a LHC, Space telescope, not even a small tokamak to test hot fusion. And the LHC produces so much data I can't even afford enough harddrives to store a copy. And even if I could, I'm not sure I have the knowledge to write a program to parse that data myself (or buy sufficient computer power to have it finished in my lifetime). Noone claimed you must me able to re-verify each and every experiment. And in many cases this is just simply impo
Scientists don't *NEED* to be trusted! (Score:5, Insightful)
The entire goddamn point of science is that you prove the theory using experiment, publish a paper explaining what you did and how you did it, and then anybody else [who is competent] can go read the paper and reproduce similar results for themselves.
The real issue here is the part I put in square brackets as an aside: "anybody [who is competent]." It's true that if you're not competent then you need to trust something. But what you need to trust is not the individual scientists themselves, but rather that competent people will, as a group, follow the process and weed out the disproven theories.
Re: Scientists don't *NEED* to be trusted! (Score:3)
Science is absolutely not about proofs. It's about gathering facts and comparing them to a prediction, along with the use of math to transform data sets into comparable sets.
To paraphrase: science is about the search for facts. If you want truth, philosophy is down the hall.
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There is such a thing as a proven theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G... [wikipedia.org]
And with a little less rigor, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G... [wikipedia.org]
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"Wall Street" uses 'bad science' to steal from us (Score:3, Insightful)
It's very challenging for non-scientists to tell the difference between good science, obsolete science that is used to sell defective products, and charlatan science - 'lipstick on a pig'.
If real scientists want respect, they need to call out Wall Street for all the ways it profits from the obesity epidemic.
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But real scientists don't want respect, they want to know how the world works.
Alternate suggestion (Score:3)
The American public can make even the basest effort in trying to understand the world for themselves and immediately grasp the complete irrelevance of perceived "warmth" when it comes to judging what is true and what is not.
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Hey come on, you're talking about a group of people who voted for Bush instead of Kerry because they'd rather have a beer with Bush.
Forgetting that Bush is a recovering alcoholic.
Have fun drinking with that guy!
Bullshit (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe scientists would be friendlier if the 'average American' wasn't a proctologic habersashery.
It is not a scientists job to teach people science. Their job is to do science. Furthermore, the "climategate" scandal has demonstrated very clearly that if a scientist dares try to engage the public to any meaningful extent, then they'd be inundated with either trolls, or assholes who insist on pushing their own personal politics.
And then, of course, scientists will get raked over the coals because they are not allowed to be a human being, who gets frustrated and bitchy when being forced to deal with such crap.
The problem is that there is no one clear problem. The media don't know jack about science, but insist on reporting it. North American culture in general has become profoundly anti-intellectual. There are other issues as well, but those are the most directly relevant.
What we need are more *spokespersons* for science. More Neil deGrasse Tysons. People who BOTH understand the science AND have the skill to teach it to laypeople. Hell, IMO general media should be banned outright from discussing scientific topics, since they don't seem to be able to do anything BUT screw it up.
Re:Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe scientists would be friendlier......the "climategate" scandal has demonstrated very clearly that if a scientist dares try to engage the public to any meaningful extent, then they'd be inundated with either trolls, or assholes
'Climategate' involved people being happy at the death of scientists they disagreed with. I don't think you understand the meaning of 'friendlier.'
Climategate was basically a bunch of assholes being revealed as assholes.
scientists gonna science (Score:2)
Rather than persuading, scientists may better serve citizens by discussing, teaching and sharing information to convey trustworthy intentions.'"
So, the study calls for presenters rather than scientists? It is difficult to find balance, but I'm inclined to think that scents should just do the science, and they'd better be well left alone. It's up to the (gasp!) media or to their institution's press department to sensibilise the public in general to the science being done and what it means.
Re:scientists gonna science (Score:4, Interesting)
Rather than persuading, scientists may better serve citizens by discussing, teaching and sharing information to convey trustworthy intentions.'"
So, the study calls for presenters rather than scientists? It is difficult to find balance, but I'm inclined to think that scents should just do the science, and they'd better be well left alone. It's up to the (gasp!) media or to their institution's press department to sensibilise the public in general to the science being done and what it means.
This isn't a problem unique to science. For decades, IT people have been told that they need to focus less on technology and more on "the business".
F**K! If they don't focus on the technology, who will? Or can? Might as well not have technology people.
Yes, there is very much a place for the people who can plant feet in two different worlds. But don't go around expecting much progress if you demand that everybody be that kind of person.
Fucked both ways (Score:2, Interesting)
The whole fucking planet knows we've got environmental problems except the people in the U.S.A. because they trust religion and politicians more than scientists who are "pushing an agenda". I pity the real scientists living there, they just can't fucking win.
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If they don't believe the science, then by the very definition they are not scientifically literate.
It seems you are confusing "deciding which steps to take to counter the issue" and "deny the issue exists while keeping on making it worse".
trust vs respect (Score:3)
Scientists have earned the respect of Americans but not necessarily their trust,' said lead author Susan Fiske, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and professor of public affairs
it was only fairly recently that someone explained the absolutely crucial difference between trust and respect, and it knocked me sideways. i used to always accept the "wisdom" that trust is EARNED.
trust - literally by definition- CANNOT be EARNED.
*respect* can be earned, because to respect someone (or something) you learn from PAST experience and PAST actions, you make a judgement call "that thing (or person) did something cool [in the PAST], and i liked it."
trust - by definition - refers to the FUTURE. i am - in the FUTURE - going to give someone the power and authority to do something. i (the person doing the trusting) actually have absolutely NO CLUE as to whether in the FUTURE, regardless of PAST performance, the person will do what they say that they can do.
how on earth can _anyone_ say, "you earned (past tense) my trust (future decision-making)"????
this is how wars are started (and sustained), by people confusing past and present in relation to trust and respect.
so this is where it gets interesting, because the original article is actually making TWO completely SEPARATE and distinct statements:
1) the american public has analysed the PAST actions of scientists, and finds that those actions are [in some way] cool enough to be respected (past tense)
2) the american public has, within themselves, insufficient knowledge about what it is that scientists do - and this has absolutely nothing to do with the scientists but EVERYTHING to do with "the american public" - in order to take the [frightening!] step of placing their trust in the FUTURE decision-making of some individuals-that-happen-to-be-scientists.
i cannot emphasise enough that a decision *to* trust has absolutely nothing to do with the person or thing that you are trusting. the *decision* to place trust in someone else really *really* is something that has absolutely nothing to do with the *analysis* of whether *to* trust.
this is where people get terribly confused. they do some analysis (based usually on past performance), and then they have to make a decision. they *believe* that the [past] analysis *IS* trust. it's not!! even once the [past] analysis has been done, you *still* need to take that step - to trust.
the link between respect and trust is that it is *usually* the respect that we have for people which tips our analysis in favour of certain individuals. but the analysis is NOT respect itself, just as trust (the decision to trust) is not the same thing as respect _either_.
now what i find ironic is that it is someone with a degree in psychology that is talking about trust being "earned". if someone whom the american public implicitly "trusts" (because they have a PhD) is saying "trust is earned" then how is anyone else supposed to know the difference between trust and respect??
I wonder if (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd wager this has much less to do with scientists coming off as "warm/fuzzy" and more to do with most people’s innate distrust of those that deliver either information they don't agree with (or more specifically that doesn't agree with their preconceived notions) or information that makes them feel stupid - when the majority hears about something they are too ignorant to understand, they don't like/trust the person with that idea - but that's just human nature.
While "scientists" do have their problems (journals / peer review circle-jerks / et al) I fear the only way they'll come across as "warm/fuzzy" would be if they "dumb it down" even more and that's not a direction we should be going, as we're already down to -11.
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Americans trust science too much (Score:2)
Americans trust science too much. If you can cite a study to prove your point you have won the argument. This has been noticed by the political class and they have designed studies to allow them to win the political argument or get the headline they want. For instance, the famous Harvard study that came up with the conclusion that medical bills cause greater than 60% of bankruptcies used as a criteria that if there were over $5000 in medical bills that caused the bankruptcy. Just about every year I have tha
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If you can cite a study to prove your point you have won the argument.
That's not trusting science too much, that's laziness. Usually the person citing the study has a tenuous grasp of what it really says, and in all but a handful of cases they are betting on the fact that few people will bother to look it up and read it themselves.
You can tell this is what's going on, because it only further polarizes people; if the "study" reinforces their existing view, then it's the best thing ever, and if not then the scientists who did it are clearly corrupt or they're just plain wrong.
Neil deGrasse Tyson? (Score:2)
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Tyson's decision was based on the IAU's 2006 decision that to be defined as a planet, an object must have cleared its orbit (which Pluto has not done).
This definition was prompted by the discovery of other objects like Eris and Sedna and the likelihood that there were many more objects like them. If Pluto is a planet, then these objects must also be planets.
The asteroid Ceres had also originally been declared a planet, but they decided to reclassify it as an asteroid when other asteroids were discovered.
I
The problem is the politicization of science (Score:3)
We really need to stop doing that. When science is seen as being a part of politics, the public assumes that the facts we discover by observation of nature can be manipulated and bargained away in the same way as the laws made by legislatures.
Close, but I think it's simpler and more normal (Score:4, Insightful)
than that.
It's not that the public doesn't trust the abilities of scientists.
It's that they don't trust their motives. We have a long literary tradition that meditates on scientists that "only cared about whether they could, not whether they should," and the politicization of sciences makes people wonder not whether scientists are incompetent, but whether they have "an agenda," i.e. whether scientists are basically lying through their teeth and/or pursuing their own political agendas in the interest of their own gain, rather than the public's.
At that point, it's not that the public thinks "If I argue loudly enough, I can change nature," but rather "I don't understand what this scientist does, and I'm sure he/she is smart, but I don't believe they're telling me about nature; rather, they're using their smarts to pull the wool over my eyes about nature and profit/benefit somehow."
So the public isn't trying to bend the laws of nature through discourse, but rather simply doesn't believe the people that are telling them about the laws of nature, because they suspect those people as not acting in good faith.
That's where a kinder, warmer scientific community comes in. R1 academics with million-dollar grants may sneer at someone like Alan Alda on Scientific American Frontiers, but that sneering is counterproductive; the public won't understand (and doesn't want to) the rigorous, nuanced state of the research on most topics. It will have to be given to them in simplified form; Alan Alda and others in that space did so, and the scientific community needs to support (more of) that, rather than sneer at it.
The sneering just reinforces the public notion that "this guy may be smarter than me, but he also thinks he's better and more deserving than me, so I can't trust that what he's telling me is really what he thinks/knows, rather than what he needs to tell me in order to get my stuff and/or come out on top in society, deserving or not."
No. Neither trusted nor competent (Score:2, Funny)
Scientist is just a label that any one can give to themselves. There is nothing preventing any human from calling themselves a scientist.
And it is so true with those that manipulate the populous for their own profits. Only a fool would have to llook further than the global warming billionaires.
perception of what truth is (Score:3)
It's only fair to note ... (Score:3)
Contradicting yourself doesn't help (Score:3)
TFS quotes the lead author as saying:
"... do not trust scientists pushing persuasive agendas. Instead, the public leans toward impartiality. ...
But this gap can be filled by showing concern for humanity and the environment."
"Showing concern for the environment", in a scientific paper, generally means at least the appearance of pushing a "green" agenda. The first sentence applies to me, I do not trust people trying to persuade me to their agenda, I want impartiality. That means her proposed solution is precisely the opposite of what would work with me - I want the facts, the numbers, and the numbers don't have care and concern, for humanity or the environment. The facts are what they are. Give me the facts and let me decide what I most care about about, which concern takes priority.
One of my favorite papers* goes through each potential national energy source and gives the benefits and drawbacks of each. It says "geothermal produces X kwh, in these locations, at this cost". It doesn't try to promote any of the options, but just lays out the facts about each. The closest it comes to advocacy is calculating approximately what percentage of energy needs COULD possibly be provided by each source, based on hard facts.
* My opinion of this particular paper is highly subjective - I wrote it. :)
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Are more interested in discovering new things or proving old things wrong, than trying to make friends with everyone.
As they should be. However, when much of their funding comes from the public purse, perhaps it's appropriate for scientists to acquaint the people paying the bills with the reasons for and the importance of their research. Also, I'm all for everyone becoming more scientifically-minded. 'Elite' science may be for those who have studied hard and made it their life's work; but 'day-to-day' science is the province of everyone, and ought to be encouraged as such. A scientific framework promotes curiosity, ration
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Peer review has nothing to do with trust. Results, those are important. Cheap way to include politics into this.
Re:Americans are smart. (Score:4, Interesting)
>Peer review has nothing to do with trust
Of course it does - not with trustng the scientists, but with trusting the results. Every single human is rife with personal bias, self deception, and carelessness. Peer review is the process in which you distinguish the results that are reflective of reality, that can be trusted, from those that are reflective of human faliability. People are right not to trust the findings of individual scientists - neither do scientists. It wasn't until that distrust was incorporated into the heart of the scientific method that science began making rapid leaps forward - because those results that pass the gauntlet of scientific distrust are solid enough to build upon.
The question is how do we explain to the non-scientific public the fact that scientists saying X one day and the opposite a few years later is a GOOD thing - that it's the the result of scientists double- and triple-checking each other's results because they know they're all falliabe human beings. And that it means something VERY different when hundreds or thouands of scientists say something than it does when only a handful are making the claim.
Re:Americans are smart. (Score:4, Informative)
I'd rather trust an elected government than corporate leaders I can do nothing about. Politicians are far from perfect, but they are one step up from capitalists, and unlike capitalists, the people have the power to kick them out every four or so years.
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I'd rather trust an elected government than corporate leaders I can do nothing about. Politicians are far from perfect, but they are one step up from capitalists, and unlike capitalists, the people have the power to kick them out every four or so years.
You can refuse to do business with and therefore not give your money to a corporation.
Try not paying your taxes and see what happens to you.
Re:Americans are smart. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Americans are smart. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you stop paying your landlord, you no longer get to use someone else's land and buildings. This comes as a shock to you?
If you own the land instead, and stop paying your property taxes, the government will take your property away.
Your argument for trusting politicians over landlords seems silly.
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If you own the land instead, and stop paying your property taxes, the government will take your property away.
I thought they'd put a lien against your property so they get it when you sell it or die; not that they could take it away while you were living on it.
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"But those don't count, because you can find new people to pay for your basic survival needs!"
--My imagined straw libertarian reply
An interesting thing specifically about the term "landlord": It's a title leftover from when property ownership was synonymous with political power. The person who owned where you lived, also more or less owned you. When the lines between wealth and official authority that democracy ushered in weren't present. Anarcho-capitalists would have believe that isn't the inevitable
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I'd rather trust an elected government than corporate leaders I can do nothing about. Politicians are far from perfect, but they are one step up from capitalists, and unlike capitalists, the people have the power to kick them out every four or so years.
You assume that the politicians are under control of the electorate ("the people"), and not under control of the capitalists.
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You can argue about definitions all day long. Marx doesn't get to make up the definitions BTW.
A Capitalist is someone who believes in the system of capitalism. Same as a Communist is someone who believes in the system of Communism.
Neither side gets to redefine the other. I own shares, I own part of a company, I employ people. I am a capitalist even if I work on things other than finance.
BTW marx was mind boggelingly wrong on all of his historic predictions. Why do you bother? His work belongs in the
Re:Americans are smart. (Score:5, Insightful)
True, but when it comes down to it, I'll trust a scientists' word about something scientific over a celebrity's word or a preacher's word.
For example, Scientist A, a respected immunologist, says that vaccines prevent disease and are good. Celebrity M, a former Playboy model, says they're filled with icky stuff and should be banned. Too many Americans would listen to the celebrity over the scientist or give their views equal weight when there is no comparison: The scientist should win out.
For another example, Scientist B, a geologist, says that the evidence points to the Earth being 4.54 billion years. Preacher Z claims that the Bible says it is only 10,000 years old. Again, too many Americans would either give them equal weight or would side with the preacher.
Avoiding the authority fallacy is a good thing, but this doesn't mean that a person's knowledge of a field should be disregarded in all cases.
Re:Americans are smart. (Score:4, Informative)
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For example, Scientist A, a respected immunologist, says that vaccines prevent disease and are good. Celebrity M, a former Playboy model, says they're filled with icky stuff and should be banned. Too many Americans would listen to the celebrity over the scientist or give their views equal weight when there is no comparison: The scientist should win out.
Pfft -- we've seen Celebrity M naked! That's as honest (cough) and (cough airbrushed) unobstructed as you get! Not like Scientist A has ever done anything forthcoming like that. What's s/he hiding behind that opaque white coat anyway? I'll bet there's a tree-hugging dirty agenda-ridden hippie under there, that's what.
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Frankly, I have no wish to see Scientist A naked. We really need scientists who are as hot as Celebrity M. I would totally trust them in that case.
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Not an anti-vaxxer, not by any means, just saying there are lots of things we think absolutely must have been tested to be completely safe when it turns out that it probably isn't as great for you as you'd like to have thought. That's all.
First, nothing is "completely safe." Everything has a limit beyond which it exceeds the capacity of a human to absorb it. On top of that, no injection or vaccination is ever 100% risk free. There is risk of infection, of allergens, of tainted products, etc. And there are also the risks of adverse side effects in some measure of the population.
People don't really understand statistics. They certainly don't understand a "one in a million" chance, as evinced by the profitability of the lottery. They also
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Your non-government % of GDP says you trust yourselves. Like government, that works better in theory than practice.
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I know that RTFA is passe' here, but if we even take a look at the abstract [pnas.org] (which shoudl be publicly available to all) we see a key point here:
Turning to a case study of scientific communication, another online sample of adults described public attitudes toward climate scientists specifically.
We already know that a large portion of our country is repeatedly fed biased misinformation on this topic and told to distrust anyone who represents an opposing viewpoint. If we tried this on something that is less of a political football, we would likely see very different results. I would doubt that anywhere near as many people would doubt scientists telling them about research on gravity or the spheroid shape of our planet.
Wall.... I ain't no pointy-headed intellectual. I'm just common folks, just like you. But any gol-darn Fool with a lick o' Common Sense can see that the Earth ain't no spherical-thingy. Why if it was, people on the bottom would fall right off! That's how gravity works!
Re:Maybe citizens saw MISLEADING PROPAGANDA? (Score:3)
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For starters, please provide citations for everything you put in quotes.
If scientists were so desperate for money, so easily bought by whoever was willing to pay them, we'd have volumes of studies saying that burning fossil fuels is good for everything from water quality to sex drive, that dumping toxic waste into rivers makes fish taste better, and that tobacco smoking curse cancer.
But we don't. For every study that suggests (or is construed to suggest even though it clearly doesn't) that climate change is
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Yes, this is a common set of mistakes and misunderstandings as well as the bizarre focus on grant money over the money in the entire fossil fuel industry that the average climate denialist partakes in.
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You're aware, I hope, that in science, a "theory" isn't the same thing as an English prof's "theory" about whether Shakespeare was the greatest sonnet writer ever.
If you don't know the difference, please visit a site like this and find out:
http://www.livescience.com/21491-what-is-a-scientific-theory-definition-of-theory.html