Astrophysicist Paul Sutter on trusting science—and why so many people don’t

In our latest "Edge of Knowledge" episode, we look at facts versus feelings.

Read the whole story

 

[mhalpern]

Ars Technica needs to find a scientist who actually understands science. That dummy thinks that climate science, and probably many other branches are settled, and he wants us to think so, too. If climate science was, in fact, settled, there would only be one weather station, and the MET office wouldn't have to spend millions on a new computer. Accuweather would be the only one nessary (for better or worse.)

Climate ≠ weather, climate influences weather, but weather is far more local in time and space, and variable. One might say Climate is averaged weather.

What's ironic to his contention that we'd only need one 'weather station' is that every local forecast, no matter who is giving it, comes from the regional office of the National Weather Service. The people on the TV news, the Weather Bug, the Weather Channel, don't gather the data and make their own forecast, they all get it it from the National Weather Service.
And that's where I go to get mine. No ads, no quirky weather guy, just accurate data.

some stations do hire actual meteorologists to help interpret that data, which is why some stations are historically more accurate (by a few percent give or take) than others, but all the same data pool.

 

[Uncivil Servant]

There was a good article just today on how politics has been overriding science at the CDC and FDA. Paywalled, so I’ll link to a tweet on it.

https://twitter.com/DrJBhattacharya/sta ... SwPrTfQWcw

Less-educated conservatives and sometimes more educated conservatives have always had issues following science. More recently, progressives have started to struggle to follow science and are often letting politics win out (and are often stifling debate). I think that’s why public mistrust of scientists has grown so much in the past few years and has spread from the far-right to lots of moderates, too.

Oh looky, a tweet that's a near-perfect trifecta of antivaxx nutjobs. If Bhattacharya or Makary told me the sky was blue I'd look up to check. These are not honest people or decent scientists, they're political propaganda hacks.

 

[Veritas super omens]

As evidence of my contention I present the post by Strategos777.

 

[Snark218]

Excellent points and not limited to one political ideology either. The left, for example, has their own boogeymen such as GMOs.

This is kind of a strawman. Antivax, climate denial, anti-conservationism, and creationism are mainstream, majority conservative beliefs. GMO opposition is pretty fringe among liberals.

I don't think it is fringe at all. The vast majority of legislation limiting GMOs or forcing warning labels come from the democratic party. Same is true of anti-nuclear legislation. More nuclear would have the biggest impact on climate change of all.

https://ballotpedia.org/California_Prop ... tive_(2012)

Is it on any state or national Democratic Party platforms? Not to deny the above, but I think you're advancing a false equivalency. The GOP's platform and entire concept of governance is radically opposed to entire fields worth of science and is actively engaged in denying their implications. The fact that the Democrats, in one state, passed a bill requiring GMO labeling is not arguable, but it's also not equivalent in commitment or impact.

That is completely disingenuous. There is even a conservative climate caucus with 60 members of Congress. https://curtis.house.gov/conservative-climate-caucus/

They acknowledge climate change and are trying to reduce emissions. Whether they go far enough is up for debate, but I’d argue any liberal solution that doesn’t include nuclear doesn’t go far enough either.

What's completely disingenuous is suggesting that the impotent existence of a climate caucus that has generated and supported no meaningful climate legislation at all in any way offsets the enormous actual damage the GOP has done to national and international climate policy and mitigation efforts.

Nuclear is not relevant at this point. Move on. Would have been great if we'd started on that project 40 years ago, but at this point we need to buy large emissions reductions immediately, not invest CAPEX and decades into nuclear that won't start replacing emitters for 30 years at least.

 

[isparavanje]

I get how important the scientific process is; doing a Ph.D. where you get to choose EE or Solid State Physics will do that for you (hint: the physics option will cut your starting earnings by 50+%, and later earnings by much more).

But I draw the line at depending on computer modeling as "science" unless you can get confirmation of the models via another path (think finite element modelling for aerodynamics, etc). I was asked as after my Master's, where I had developed some new semiconductor models and incorporated those into industry standard simulators, to review some climate simulators. I was absolutely appalled at how badly written those things were. I'm concerned about climate change, but because of the underlying physics, not because of the models' predictions. I'm absolutely leery about assigning even 5% credibility to those models having seen the internals. Need I remind everyone here of how badly the COVID model predictions have proven? Computer simulations take a combination of computer programming knowledge and field knowledge that isn't common. Even then, those with knowledge of their field often overestimate their understanding of phenomena and their applications to more complicated systems, and then to add the complexity of trying to add that to a well written computer program is beyond nearly everybody's ability.

And as time has gone on, I've seen more and more computer models from various sources and seen how badly those have been implemented. 30 years later, having done and used simulators for decades I've come up with a simple rule: unless the entity has billions of dollars on the line, or is completely independent of funding bias and using models developed for decades using proven methods, I won't trust the simulations. They are at best an interesting guide into something that must be investigated further. Even in semiconductor fabrication where we have very solid physics behind the models you still get fairly crappy results when you actually try to do something involving the actual physics behind the models. There's a reason you use digital elements for the vast bulk of semiconductors where you can abstract 95% of the behavior of the underlying elements.

I question if you do understand what you claim to. How could you claim to understand 'computer modelling' while tarring all computer models with such a broad brush? Even within a single field, computer models can vary greatly in terms of robustness.

"30 years later, having done and used simulators for decades I've come up with a simple rule: unless the entity has billions of dollars on the line, or is completely independent of funding bias and using models developed for decades using proven methods, I won't trust the simulations."

That is completely contrary to my experience in particle physics. Many experiments in the millions to hundreds of millions of dollars range are extremely well modelled, and often the major worries are about percent-level effects.

Compare, for example, the expected sensitivity of the BOREXINO experiment to CNO solar neutrinos (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2005.12829.pdf), and the actual measurement (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.15115.pdf).

Maybe you are saying that simulations based on first principles only that don't use calibration data from the lab or from previous epochs are often not very good, because there isn't a full accounting of all of the effects present. I suppose that's true. Thankfully climate science doesn't do that. Even the 1990 IPCC report made a pretty good prediction with their expected value of climate sensitivity:

.

 

[Burned]

Yes, there have always been conspiracy theorists, doomsayers, crazies, etc. The threat we're facing today is that all of these individuals now have the means to mobilize through social media and the Internet at large, bask in greater and greater concentrations of insanity, and spread their madness to the impressionable.

Evil has always had the inherent weakness that groups of haters tend to start hating each other, but the Internet is a perfect medium for them to glom onto each other without having to deal with the challenges of personal interaction.

There are also those who troll (in a general sense) and delight in their contrarianism. They amuse themselves to no end with their "powning the..." whomever. The internet and social media amplify that. It gives them a sense of power over their lives.

 

[Snark218]

I find the notion of "mistrust of science" to be a misleading premise. It's not "science" that people mistrust. It's the mainstream scientific DOCTRINE that people mistrust.

People don't believe that climate doesn't exist (That's Science). They don't believe that Global Warming is caused by mankind (scientific doctrine). They don't believe that the Earth or Moon aren't planets (science), they don't believe that they are round or that we landed on them (Scientific Doctrine).

Scientific Doctrine has been proven wrong again, and again, and AGAIN because THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. We have theories that are "best guesses". We test those theories. We get better data. Our theories are disproven. We come up with new theories. That's what ACTUAL science in-practice IS.

There is this notion that Scientific DOCTRINE is "science" and that's completely absurd. If scienfific doctrine were science, we would still believe in phrenology, eugenics, spontaneous generation of disease.

The truth is that the Moon COULDbe an alien spaceship, global warming could be caused by an alien invasion, and Covid-19 is germ warfare, but until we can PROVE those things, they are unproven theories that diverge from mainstream scientific doctrine.

How can people become more convinced of scientific doctrine? Well the more that doctrine is proved beyond all doubt to be right, the more rational trust will appear. When the Wright Bros were flying their planes no one believed it (not even in their home town). But when they did it in front of crowds of thousands eventually so many people had seen the truth with their own eyes that people who didn't believe it were quickly seen as mistaken. All truth is like this. Eventually obvious proven truth prevails. It's just a matter of time.

Whether or not current Scientific doctrine will prove to be more like flying airplanes or phrenology is anyone's guess.

There's no such thing as Scientific Doctrine. And, 'proof' is for mathematicians and maker of booze.
Science is *evidence based*. If you want doctrine stick with religion. If you want a self-adjusting, ever expanding knowledge of how this place works, go with science.

Well when you try to apply scientific thinking to the public you are now more entering the philosophical legal space where state is "proven" (as in "innocent until proven guilty"). In other words, if you have a law that prevents global warming then legally you need to "prove" that global warming exists. Let us say in this context that proving means removing all reasonable doubt through accepted reasonable evidence.

The very trouble with your statement is that it vindicates my arguement as self-proving (self-evident). If nothing can be proven, they all we have is an ever-growing basis of evidence (some good, some not-so-good) and all we have are theories. And in a very real sense that means ALL we have is doctrine (currently popularly accepted theories).

In other words, you are postulating that that in science THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS FACT, only "best guesses". And that means that anyone who believes popular conclusions of consideration of scientific evidence is obviously a believer not in facts, but in doctrines.

Either truth is provable and knowable and both science and philosophy is a search for truth, or truth is NOT provable and knowable and only guessable and therefore ALL we have either way is doctrine based on evidence of various types and strengths. And by that logic, the only difference between "scientific" evidence and conspiracy theories is the source and supposed credibility of the evidence.

You see the problem here? Either you admit that science can prove things beyond all doubt or you admit that it can't.

That's it, you win. Stine was low-effort compared to this bullshit.

 

[The Lurker Beneath]

Upton Sinclair's quip still stands

'It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.'

In a broader sense, people don't want to change their life styles. If scientists say we have to adjust our habits and some demagogue tells them the scientists have an agenda, etc. a certain segment will gravitate to the comfort of the lie.

I am so a fan of that quote.

If Russia cuts off the gas to Europe, and we finally get to cut carbon emissions for real this winter, expect equally deafening howling from right and left...

 

[Kurosawa]

the world != US society

 

[Beckler]

The other thing people should be taught is that you DON'T GET an opinion on certain things. Having a personal opinion (that's not based on reading current science) on climate change is as meaningless as having one on particle physics. Either you study to a PhD level and contribute yourself, or if you have some high-level 'easy' objection, take it to an expert and be disabused of it (or maybe it just might be something nobody's thought of and you've just changed the world! )

So then, on most complex topics being referred to here, if one must have a "belief" there's no choice but to go along with global scientific consensus (if there is one). Any other belief is based on nothing. (At the fundamental level it makes no difference what anyone believes. Who cares. Results stand on their own. But practically, it does matter since decision makers are swayed by their beliefs. So stop holding irrational beliefs, humans.)

 

[Veritas super omens]

Strat? Science does not "prove beyond all doubt". That is absurd. Science does create models of the way nature works. Those models make predictions. "I predict that if I spin this magnet inside this coil of wire I can create an electric current which can be useful to turn on the lights if I run that current through this device that is designed (by scientists!) to make light from an electric current" kind of predictions. And it works. It works to an incredible degree of benefit for humans. Your specious arguments are ridiculous so GTFOOH. This is a science site and you are embarrassing yourself.

 

[Snark218]

"30 years later, having done and used simulators for decades I've come up with a simple rule: unless the entity has billions of dollars on the line, or is completely independent of funding bias and using models developed for decades using proven methods, I won't trust the simulations."

That is completely contrary to my experience in particle physics. Many experiments in the millions to hundreds of millions of dollars range are extremely well modelled, and often the major worries are about .

And, like, what does this fuckin' joker think IPCC models are? The methodology AND the data is open source!

 

[Sajuuk]

Excellent points and not limited to one political ideology either. The left, for example, has their own boogeymen such as GMOs.

This is kind of a strawman. Antivax, climate denial, anti-conservationism, and creationism are mainstream, majority conservative beliefs. GMO opposition is pretty fringe among liberals.

I don't think it is fringe at all. The vast majority of legislation limiting GMOs or forcing warning labels come from the democratic party. Same is true of anti-nuclear legislation. More nuclear would have the biggest impact on climate change of all.

https://ballotpedia.org/California_Prop ... tive_(2012)

Is it on any state or national Democratic Party platforms? Not to deny the above, but I think you're advancing a false equivalency. The GOP's platform and entire concept of governance is radically opposed to entire fields worth of science and is actively engaged in denying their implications. The fact that the Democrats, in one state, passed a bill requiring GMO labeling is not arguable, but it's also not equivalent in commitment or impact.

That is completely disingenuous. There is even a conservative climate caucus with 60 members of Congress. https://curtis.house.gov/conservative-climate-caucus/

They acknowledge climate change and are trying to reduce emissions. Whether they go far enough is up for debate, but I’d argue any liberal solution that doesn’t include nuclear doesn’t go far enough either.

What's completely disingenuous is suggesting that the impotent existence of a climate caucus that has generated and supported no meaningful climate legislation at all in any way offsets the enormous actual damage the GOP has done to national and international climate policy and mitigation efforts.

Nuclear is not relevant at this point. Move on. Would have been great if we'd started on that project 40 years ago, but at this point we need to buy large emissions reductions immediately, not invest CAPEX and decades into nuclear that won't start replacing emitters for 30 years at least.

Also, look how soft and passive their own language is!

The climate is changing, and decades of a global industrial era that has brought prosperity to the world has also contributed to that change.

Oh, "contributed to that change", that's all.

 

[Uncivil Servant]

I find the notion of "mistrust of science" to be a misleading premise. It's not "science" that people mistrust. It's the mainstream scientific DOCTRINE that people mistrust.

People don't believe that climate doesn't exist (That's Science). They don't believe that Global Warming is caused by mankind (scientific doctrine). They don't believe that the Earth or Moon aren't planets (science), they don't believe that they are round or that we landed on them (Scientific Doctrine).

Scientific Doctrine has been proven wrong again, and again, and AGAIN because THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. We have theories that are "best guesses". We test those theories. We get better data. Our theories are disproven. We come up with new theories. That's what ACTUAL science in-practice IS.

There is this notion that Scientific DOCTRINE is "science" and that's completely absurd. If scienfific doctrine were science, we would still believe in phrenology, eugenics, spontaneous generation of disease.

The truth is that the Moon COULDbe an alien spaceship, global warming could be caused by an alien invasion, and Covid-19 is germ warfare, but until we can PROVE those things, they are unproven theories that diverge from mainstream scientific doctrine.

How can people become more convinced of scientific doctrine? Well the more that doctrine is proved beyond all doubt to be right, the more rational trust will appear. When the Wright Bros were flying their planes no one believed it (not even in their home town). But when they did it in front of crowds of thousands eventually so many people had seen the truth with their own eyes that people who didn't believe it were quickly seen as mistaken. All truth is like this. Eventually obvious proven truth prevails. It's just a matter of time.

Whether or not current Scientific doctrine will prove to be more like flying airplanes or phrenology is anyone's guess.

There's no such thing as Scientific Doctrine. And, 'proof' is for mathematicians and maker of booze.
Science is *evidence based*. If you want doctrine stick with religion. If you want a self-adjusting, ever expanding knowledge of how this place works, go with science.

Well when you try to apply scientific thinking to the public you are now more entering the philosophical legal space where state is "proven" (as in "innocent until proven guilty"). In other words, if you have a law that prevents global warming then legally you need to "prove" that global warming exists. Let us say in this context that proving means removing all reasonable doubt through accepted reasonable evidence.

The very trouble with your statement is that it vindicates my arguement as self-proving (self-evident). If nothing can be proven, they all we have is an ever-growing basis of evidence (some good, some not-so-good) and all we have are theories. And in a very real sense that means ALL we have is doctrine (currently popularly accepted theories).

In other words, you are postulating that that in science THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS FACT, only "best guesses". And that means that anyone who believes popular conclusions of consideration of scientific evidence is obviously a believer not in facts, but in doctrines.

Either truth is provable and knowable and both science and philosophy is a search for truth, or truth is NOT provable and knowable and only guessable and therefore ALL we have either way is doctrine based on evidence of various types and strengths. And by that logic, the only difference between "scientific" evidence and conspiracy theories is the source and supposed credibility of the evidence.

You see the problem here? Either you admit that science can prove things beyond all doubt or you admit that it can't.

I'm sorry. My job involves translating between scientific (medical) and government documents. While you are broadly correct that the language involved is very different and has different concepts of certainty....

All the rest is simply not even wrong. Except to the extent that there are entire offices full of people whose jobs involve addressing and solving the various issues that you claim are impossible to reconcile.

 

[Snark218]

Also, look how soft and passive their own language is!

The climate is changing, and decades of a global industrial era that has brought prosperity to the world has also contributed to that change.

Oh, "contributed to that change", that's all.

Mistakes were made, and passive language was used.

 

[rhedd]

Adding a link here to a previous Ars article that I think touches on some fine points related to this..

https://meincmagazine.com/science/2018/05 ... i-learned/

 

[jimisawesome]

On the GMO thing, jt's important to distinguish between American and European attitudes on this. In the USA it isn't a major political issue, in large part because scientists have pushed back against fearmongering.

In the EU, government agencies have literally just flat-out ignored and contradicted their own scientific advisory bodies in favor of an overly cautious "principle" found nowhere else in public health (altough they use the same basic philosophy as antivaxxers). They even go so far as to demand labelling of animal products if those animals ate GMO crops, which is so ridiculous and idiotic that even American science denialists mock them.

You really cannot just look at the USA on that issue and conclude that it's nothing. In the EU, scientific ignorance around genetic engineering has very real costs in terms of plant yields (a BFD with Ukraine at war and loss of wheat harvests) but even more so in that it limits what crops farmers in developing nations have to grow if they want access to European markets, forcing them to use suboptimal crops with shitty yields and preventing them from switching to much better crops used elsewhere in the world.

And then Europeans tut-tut about how we must do something about famine in Africa. I really cannot express my disgust with EU leaders on this issue enough, they are as bad as Republicans, and every bit as zealous and ignorant.

Preach. And it's been Euro companies buying up farmlands across Africa and planting their inferior seeds that cause more deforestation, release more carbon and require more inputs (herbicides, pesticides etc). The US is over a quarter no till and over 60% conservation tilling. South America is over half no till.

 

[Snark218]

You see the problem here? Either you admit that science can prove things beyond all doubt or you admit that it can't.

Prove that you are not a brain in a vat being fed a simulated reality through magnetic induction.

 

[Veritas super omens]

You see the problem here? Either you admit that science can prove things beyond all doubt or you admit that it can't.

Prove that you are not a brain in a vat being fed a simulated reality through magnetic induction.

Obviously not. There is absolutely no evidence of "brain" in the posts.

 

[isparavanje]

"30 years later, having done and used simulators for decades I've come up with a simple rule: unless the entity has billions of dollars on the line, or is completely independent of funding bias and using models developed for decades using proven methods, I won't trust the simulations."

That is completely contrary to my experience in particle physics. Many experiments in the millions to hundreds of millions of dollars range are extremely well modelled, and often the major worries are about .

And, like, what does this fuckin' joker think IPCC models are? The methodology AND the data is open source!

The guy is basically a Richard Muller who doesn't actually bother to act on his criticisms.

When Richard Muller actually dug into climate science to address his own scepticism, he found that, surprise, he didn't know better than an entire field of science. It's good though that he publicly announced that he is converted and now the organisation he founded, Berkeley Earth, just does regular climate science.

 

[Snark218]

"30 years later, having done and used simulators for decades I've come up with a simple rule: unless the entity has billions of dollars on the line, or is completely independent of funding bias and using models developed for decades using proven methods, I won't trust the simulations."

That is completely contrary to my experience in particle physics. Many experiments in the millions to hundreds of millions of dollars range are extremely well modelled, and often the major worries are about .

And, like, what does this fuckin' joker think IPCC models are? The methodology AND the data is open source!

The guy is basically a Richard Muller who doesn't actually bother to act on his criticisms.

When Richard Muller actually dug into climate science to address his own scepticism, he found that, surprise, he didn't know better than an entire field of science. It's good though that he publicly announced that he is converted and now the organisation he founded, Berkeley Earth, just does regular climate science.

Gotta respect that. Takes some stones to put your name and reputation on the line, start trying to refute climate science, fail, go "....well, fuck" and then do a crisp about face.

 

[FreeRangeOrganicSoyLatteCappuccino]

This is a great topic. I've been interested in this for a long time - the thesis proposal for one of my graduate degrees that I had started (but didn't complete) was directly related to this, and the research is fascinating.

In the US, this is particularly interesting. In the REST of the world, there is a fairly strong correlation between education levels and acceptance of scientific conclusions (for example with COVID, anthropogenic climate change, etc.). The more well-educated you are, the more you trust science as the main way of understanding truths about the physical world.

But in the US, increased education increases *polarization*. (https://grist.org/climate-energy/educat ... n-the-u-s/) . That is, the more educated you are, the more strongly you hold on to the belief aligned with your political party or orientation. Educated Democrats more strongly believe in the scientific consensus, educated republicans believe the opposite.

Now, since education ALSO correlates to political orientation, we will have MORE people believe more strongly in the consensus because the more well-educated you are, the more likely you are to be a liberal or a Democrat.

Of course, it also hurts that so few scientists are Republicans (as few as 6% of scientists are republicans - https://www.huffpost.com/entry/only-six ... n_n_229382), and this fact gets amplified by the loudest, most extreme voices in the Republican party.

And the net result? a HUGE imbalance between the center and left in the US and the right, which (as a whole) doesn't believe or understand science (https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewst ... f1274316da).

So the issue isn't as much that "people" don't trust science. It is that poorly-educated people on the *right* don't trust science, at least in the US.

So this is really an "education gap" issue more than a "science" issue per se. And given that an increasing number of the biggest problems in the world are highly complex technical and scientific issues AND the fact that the education gap itself appears to be increasing in the US? What has happened with COVID and climate change may be just the beginning of how badly the battle between science and political ideology damages our world.

"Of course, it also hurts that so few scientists are Republicans (as few as 6% of scientists are republicans - https://www.huffpost.com/entry/only-six ... n_n_229382), and this fact gets amplified by the loudest, most extreme voices in the Republican party."

As someone who works in science, I know many scientists from Republican families. I just don't know many who stayed Republican, especially after 2016; literally every scientist I know well enough to talk about politics is either liberal-leaning or at least a never-Trumper-type. I think it is hard to remain Trumper-Republican without being very ignorant, at least not without olympian levels of cognitive dissonance.

In other words, I'm saying that Republicans can be scientists; they just don't stay that way after being exposed to the cosmopolitan world of science and mastering the more logical and bayesian ways of processing information.

To clarify, scientists that work in academia skew very liberal. On the other hand, scientists and engineers that work in private industry tend to skew conservative.

This is incorrect. Even in 2009, 10% of scientists in industry identified as Republican, while 47% Democrat. Slightly more identify as Republican than in academia (6%), but still a tiny minority. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/20 ... -religion/

I notice that you sneaked in 'engineers', when we are talking about science, just to score a Technically Correct™ point. I have plenty of respect for engineers; after all, I'm an experimentalist and I'm not going to start building or designing my own instrument amplifiers or something. Engineers play a fundamental role in science and society. However, they, by and large, do not really practice science. The distinction is usually not drawn by what your major is, but whether you do science (ie. research).

The survey I cited drew scientists from the AAAS, so likely includes a number of 'PhD-level engineers' who do research too. So no, it's not some gatekeeping sample. It's a sample of people who do research, basically. I don't think being an engineer is incompatible with being Republican in the same way that getting a PhD and being an active researcher is.

Many people seem to think the only people that understand "science" are people that work in a lab and/or publish journal articles. Engineers, physicians, pilots, architects, etc ... there are many jobs that require a deep and practical understanding of science.

There is a reason academia is called the "Ivory Tower".

No, understanding a narrow niche of practical knowledge and actually understanding the process of science enough to do research are completely different things. You can understand the physics of buckling enough to be a really good civil engineer without any understanding of Science.

You wouldn't trust me to know what I am doing designing a motor in solidworks with an appropriate margin of error, and I wouldn't trust the majority of practicing engineers who don't have a scientific background to conduct an experiment in an unbiased manner, analyse the data with a statistical model that does not overstate the statistical significance of any result, and present it in a manner that is not misleading.

I am also not talking about academia at all, and I explicitly include many scientists working in industry R&D who never publish anything. It is not about academia or publishing, it is about understanding how science is conducted and how the collective knowledge of humanity is advanced. I even specifically used a survey that included industrial scientists outside academia.

As many others have stated, science is not a conclusion, it is a process. The scientific process is not some holy scripture that can only be understood by some priest-class of basic science researchers.

An internist may not have a keep knowledge of quantum physics, the psychologist/sociologist may not have a deep knowledge of organic chemistry, the semiconductor engineer may not have a deep knowledge of sociology, the gorilla field researcher may not have a deep knowledge of rocket dynamics.

Yet they can all understand the scientific process and scientific knowledge.

Anyhow, back to my original point in this comment section. Claiming that "science" or "scientific understanding" is the bailiwick of just one political party or the other is simply ridiculous.

 

[isparavanje]

"30 years later, having done and used simulators for decades I've come up with a simple rule: unless the entity has billions of dollars on the line, or is completely independent of funding bias and using models developed for decades using proven methods, I won't trust the simulations."

That is completely contrary to my experience in particle physics. Many experiments in the millions to hundreds of millions of dollars range are extremely well modelled, and often the major worries are about .

And, like, what does this fuckin' joker think IPCC models are? The methodology AND the data is open source!

The guy is basically a Richard Muller who doesn't actually bother to act on his criticisms.

When Richard Muller actually dug into climate science to address his own scepticism, he found that, surprise, he didn't know better than an entire field of science. It's good though that he publicly announced that he is converted and now the organisation he founded, Berkeley Earth, just does regular climate science.

Gotta respect that. Takes some stones to put your name and reputation on the line, start trying to refute climate science, fail, go "....well, fuck" and then do a crisp about face.

In the field we call those stones 'tenure'

But honestly, I think it is a good example of how scientists should act. Shame on Freeman Dyson and other physicists who think they know better without actually delving into the work.

 

[FreeRangeOrganicSoyLatteCappuccino]

You see the problem here? Either you admit that science can prove things beyond all doubt or you admit that it can't.

Prove that you are not a brain in a vat being fed a simulated reality through magnetic induction.

We are demonstrably a brain in a vat (i.e. your skull), floating in a liquid (i.e. your CSF), being stimulated by electrical induction (i.e. nerve impulses from your peripheral nervous system).

 

[TimtheTaxMan]

Excellent points and not limited to one political ideology either. The left, for example, has their own boogeymen such as GMOs.

This is kind of a strawman. Antivax, climate denial, anti-conservationism, and creationism are mainstream, majority conservative beliefs. GMO opposition is pretty fringe among liberals.

I don't think it is fringe at all. The vast majority of legislation limiting GMOs or forcing warning labels come from the democratic party. Same is true of anti-nuclear legislation. More nuclear would have the biggest impact on climate change of all.

https://ballotpedia.org/California_Prop ... tive_(2012)

Is it on any state or national Democratic Party platforms? Not to deny the above, but I think you're advancing a false equivalency. The GOP's platform and entire concept of governance is radically opposed to entire fields worth of science and is actively engaged in denying their implications. The fact that the Democrats, in one state, passed a bill requiring GMO labeling is not arguable, but it's also not equivalent in commitment or impact.

That is completely disingenuous. There is even a conservative climate caucus with 60 members of Congress. https://curtis.house.gov/conservative-climate-caucus/

They acknowledge climate change and are trying to reduce emissions. Whether they go far enough is up for debate, but I’d argue any liberal solution that doesn’t include nuclear doesn’t go far enough either.

What's completely disingenuous is suggesting that the impotent existence of a climate caucus that has generated and supported no meaningful climate legislation at all in any way offsets the enormous actual damage the GOP has done to national and international climate policy and mitigation efforts.

Nuclear is not relevant at this point. Move on. Would have been great if we'd started on that project 40 years ago, but at this point we need to buy large emissions reductions immediately, not invest CAPEX and decades into nuclear that won't start replacing emitters for 30 years at least.

I never said the Republican party was the best at addressing climate change, but neither is it universally against science or only composted of climate deniers. 1/3 acknowledging it as a problem is a nice start and could pave the way to bills getting passed.

There is no reasonable way to reverse climate change without nuclear. Liberals have opposed nuclear for years without a scientific basis and it is nearly impossible to build new plants as a result. It's time to drop the pipe dream that renewables can solve all of our problems.

Renewables are great, but have serious issues of their own. The power they create is unreliable and requires huge amounts of storage. There are also significant distribution issues. They also cause a great deal of environmental damage to habitats and wildlife.

Nuclear is safe, reliable, doesn't take much room, can be built almost anywhere, and can provide enormous amounts of carbon free power.

 

[jimisawesome]

Just saying maybe 'Science' should get its house in order first. You have entire fields where a coin flip has a better chance of being reproduced than peer review research published in quality journals in the field and this is not just psychology and social science even areas of biology are almost this bad (drug research).

Public Health officials have not exactly wrapped themselves in glory over the last couple of years. To say nothing of how some with PhDs have acted on social media.

And don't get me started on the Obesity epidemic and how that is an acceptable form of science denialism even in scientific circles. You can publish absolute garbage studies where the data either support the 180-degree position you claim it does or you can just use Excel best fit instead of widely accepted formulas and pass peer review, published in halfway decent journals and hundreds of new reports with next to no pushback from people in the field.

The amount of P hacked studies that get major press coverage is still a problem. And you might say hey Jim why you blaming science for what newspapers do, it's because these researchers are sending or approving the sending of press releases that taught their weak studies.

 

[isparavanje]

"Of course, it also hurts that so few scientists are Republicans (as few as 6% of scientists are republicans - https://www.huffpost.com/entry/only-six ... n_n_229382), and this fact gets amplified by the loudest, most extreme voices in the Republican party."

As someone who works in science, I know many scientists from Republican families. I just don't know many who stayed Republican, especially after 2016; literally every scientist I know well enough to talk about politics is either liberal-leaning or at least a never-Trumper-type. I think it is hard to remain Trumper-Republican without being very ignorant, at least not without olympian levels of cognitive dissonance.

In other words, I'm saying that Republicans can be scientists; they just don't stay that way after being exposed to the cosmopolitan world of science and mastering the more logical and bayesian ways of processing information.

To clarify, scientists that work in academia skew very liberal. On the other hand, scientists and engineers that work in private industry tend to skew conservative.

This is incorrect. Even in 2009, 10% of scientists in industry identified as Republican, while 47% Democrat. Slightly more identify as Republican than in academia (6%), but still a tiny minority. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/20 ... -religion/

I notice that you sneaked in 'engineers', when we are talking about science, just to score a Technically Correct™ point. I have plenty of respect for engineers; after all, I'm an experimentalist and I'm not going to start building or designing my own instrument amplifiers or something. Engineers play a fundamental role in science and society. However, they, by and large, do not really practice science. The distinction is usually not drawn by what your major is, but whether you do science (ie. research).

The survey I cited drew scientists from the AAAS, so likely includes a number of 'PhD-level engineers' who do research too. So no, it's not some gatekeeping sample. It's a sample of people who do research, basically. I don't think being an engineer is incompatible with being Republican in the same way that getting a PhD and being an active researcher is.

Many people seem to think the only people that understand "science" are people that work in a lab and/or publish journal articles. Engineers, physicians, pilots, architects, etc ... there are many jobs that require a deep and practical understanding of science.

There is a reason academia is called the "Ivory Tower".

No, understanding a narrow niche of practical knowledge and actually understanding the process of science enough to do research are completely different things. You can understand the physics of buckling enough to be a really good civil engineer without any understanding of Science.

You wouldn't trust me to know what I am doing designing a motor in solidworks with an appropriate margin of error, and I wouldn't trust the majority of practicing engineers who don't have a scientific background to conduct an experiment in an unbiased manner, analyse the data with a statistical model that does not overstate the statistical significance of any result, and present it in a manner that is not misleading.

I am also not talking about academia at all, and I explicitly include many scientists working in industry R&D who never publish anything. It is not about academia or publishing, it is about understanding how science is conducted and how the collective knowledge of humanity is advanced. I even specifically used a survey that included industrial scientists outside academia.

As many others have stated, science is not a conclusion, it is a process. The scientific process is not some holy scripture that can only be understood by some priest-class of basic science researchers.

An internist may not have a keep knowledge of quantum physics, the psychologist/sociologist may not have a deep knowledge of organic chemistry, the semiconductor engineer may not have a deep knowledge of sociology, the gorilla field researcher may not have a deep knowledge of rocket dynamics.

Yet they can all understand the scientific process and scientific knowledge.

Anyhow, back to my original point in this comment section. Claiming that "science" or "scientific understanding" is the bailiwick of just one political party or the other is simply ridiculous.

Sorry, your original point, and I quote, was this:

To clarify, scientists that work in academia skew very liberal. On the other hand, scientists and engineers that work in private industry tend to skew conservative.

That is quite a different point. It also was literally just wrong and I even cited a source to demonstrate that, so you decided to go into an argument about how scientist should include everyone in STEM (or maybe just those you like(?)) even though obviously that is not how anyone interprets the word scientist in the English language.

You also tried to argue that I am talking about academics when I explicitly included industrial scientists.

Now you are trying to argue that I am claiming science or scientific understand is the bailiwick of one political party. I am not. Remember, I said this:

In other words, I'm saying that Republicans can be scientists; they just don't stay that way after being exposed to the cosmopolitan world of science and mastering the more logical and bayesian ways of processing information.

I am explicitly not saying that Republicans can't be scientists. Republicans can and often do become scientists. You can be a scientist regardless of your political affiliation. The problem is keeping that political affiliation after you are exposed to the rest of the world, and after you learn to update your beliefs in the fact of new data. Many just become independents instead after realising that the party line literally involves the Big Lie; after all, why keep believing the Lie when you can just update your beliefs?

 

[chaos215bar2]

Decades of underfunding education may be part of it.

I thought that too, but how do you convince a student and their family that do have adequate access to education, that they need to go to school even though they are planning on working on the family farm for the rest of their life.

Access to education is one problem but perception of what an education is, is another issue.

Modern farming is quite technical, and I'd wager many farmers are actually more highly educated than the average American. I think this is a pretty common misconception, but it really mischaracterizes this aspect of rural America.

Access to education is certainly an issue for farm workers, but these are not people planning to spend their entire lives living and working on their family's own land.

 

[daveishereagain]

I find the notion of "mistrust of science" to be a misleading premise. It's not "science" that people mistrust. It's the mainstream scientific DOCTRINE that people mistrust.

People don't believe that climate doesn't exist (That's Science). They don't believe that Global Warming is caused by mankind (scientific doctrine). They don't believe that the Earth or Moon aren't planets (science), they don't believe that they are round or that we landed on them (Scientific Doctrine).

Scientific Doctrine has been proven wrong again, and again, and AGAIN because THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. We have theories that are "best guesses". We test those theories. We get better data. Our theories are disproven. We come up with new theories. That's what ACTUAL science in-practice IS.

There is this notion that Scientific DOCTRINE is "science" and that's completely absurd. If scienfific doctrine were science, we would still believe in phrenology, eugenics, spontaneous generation of disease.

The truth is that the Moon COULDbe an alien spaceship, global warming could be caused by an alien invasion, and Covid-19 is germ warfare, but until we can PROVE those things, they are unproven theories that diverge from mainstream scientific doctrine.

How can people become more convinced of scientific doctrine? Well the more that doctrine is proved beyond all doubt to be right, the more rational trust will appear. When the Wright Bros were flying their planes no one believed it (not even in their home town). But when they did it in front of crowds of thousands eventually so many people had seen the truth with their own eyes that people who didn't believe it were quickly seen as mistaken. All truth is like this. Eventually obvious proven truth prevails. It's just a matter of time.

Whether or not current Scientific doctrine will prove to be more like flying airplanes or phrenology is anyone's guess.

There's no such thing as Scientific Doctrine. And, 'proof' is for mathematicians and maker of booze.
Science is *evidence based*. If you want doctrine stick with religion. If you want a self-adjusting, ever expanding knowledge of how this place works, go with science.

Well when you try to apply scientific thinking to the public you are now more entering the philosophical legal space where state is "proven" (as in "innocent until proven guilty"). In other words, if you have a law that prevents global warming then legally you need to "prove" that global warming exists. Let us say in this context that proving means removing all reasonable doubt through accepted reasonable evidence.

The very trouble with your statement is that it vindicates my arguement as self-proving (self-evident). If nothing can be proven, they all we have is an ever-growing basis of evidence (some good, some not-so-good) and all we have are theories. And in a very real sense that means ALL we have is doctrine (currently popularly accepted theories).

In other words, you are postulating that that in science THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS FACT, only "best guesses". And that means that anyone who believes popular conclusions of consideration of scientific evidence is obviously a believer not in facts, but in doctrines.

Either truth is provable and knowable and both science and philosophy is a search for truth, or truth is NOT provable and knowable and only guessable and therefore ALL we have either way is doctrine based on evidence of various types and strengths. And by that logic, the only difference between "scientific" evidence and conspiracy theories is the source and supposed credibility of the evidence.

You see the problem here? Either you admit that science can prove things beyond all doubt or you admit that it can't.

Oh, I see the problem alright. It's in you inventing your own definitions of how things are which do not emulate reality. I -nor anyone else- can help you understand where your error is when you have your mind made up on how science works and it is completely inaccurate.
Science is A PROCESS based on EVIDENCE to attempt to explain observed phenomena using our best understanding on how the universe works using the latest tools at our disposal.
The more we learn the more questions that produces since it's an ONGOING PROCESS.
There are no absolutes, there are only explanations using EVIDENCE.
If that's 'best guesses' to you, fine. It doesn't make it less valid. If that's 'doctrine' to you, then you're missing the whole show.
We knew the speed of light before we figured out how it propagates into what we observe. We needed additional information on the the workings of the atom and the counter-intuitive nature of light behaving as a wave AND a particle. Or , even the seemingly impossible behavior of quantum mechanics that even Einstein looked upon with suspicion.
Science is a process that allows for self-correction and an expansion/adjustment of understanding what we observe. That's not doctrine. We arrive at the best explanation the evidence gives us until a better one comes along. If that's 'best guesses' then that's what you call it.
I call it fascinating.

 

[jimisawesome]

Decades of underfunding education may be part of it.

I thought that too, but how do you convince a student and their family that do have adequate access to education, that they need to go to school even though they are planning on working on the family farm for the rest of their life.

Access to education is one problem but perception of what an education is, is another issue.

Modern farming is quite technical, and I'd wager many farmers are actually more highly educated than the average American. I think this is a pretty common misconception, but it really mischaracterizes this aspect of rural America.

Access to education is certainly an issue for farm workers, but these are not people planning to spend their entire lives living and working on their family's own land.

If you are running a family farm you have at least a BS in Ag and probably a masters and/or MBA on top of it. But, this is the common lazy view that farmers are bunch of yokals that fall for the latest snake oil. When the reality is they are running a business that has low margins and every advancement can save them money increasing these thin margins. Farmers are some of the fastest adopters to the latest best practice and technology. I mentioned it elsewhere but US farmers at over 60% percent conservation tilling and 20% no tilling and its increasing every year with the help of new products.

 

[Mal Adapted]

I always thought money is the reason people don't trust science. If we took away borders, global economy, and the snake oil salesman with their pseudo science. There might be a place in the circle of trust for legitimate science. But that would require our world to progress for humanity, not economy, so it's never going to happen.

My other thought is the fact humanity has made shit up for centuries for things they can't understand, it's hardwired in us. So even though there is an explanation for something, if they don't understand the explanation, they make up their own story their minds can understand. Why? Because people's view of education is not equal, never mind issues with accessibility.

I think we should get the money out of politics.
Think about the areas of science where public acceptance is a problem; they will mostly cross over into politics. If people don't want to believe in the Big Bang, well so what? But if people don't want to believe in climate change or vaccination, then it is a public policy issue which affects our present and future well-being. Government policy on these issues is being influenced by money; from people who will suffer financially if we take appropriate actions, from people who use chaos as a way to raise money, and from people who use money to create chaos for their own purposes (e.g. Russian trolls).

You picked a very poor example because "climate change" was called "global warming" until it turned out that the IPCC did their own studies and dropped some series' results that conflicted with both their official position and budget.

Also questioning the science is actually how science is done.

You just outed yourself as a climate-science denialist.

First, "they changed the name" is a popular denialist meme. "Climate change" and "global warming" are both valid terms, with overlapping meanings. "Climate change" is the effect, "anthropogenic global warming" the cause. It's not hard to understand!

Second, the IPCC doesn't do its own research, but draws solely on previously published findings by working climate scientists.

Last, "questioning the science" is properly done by trained, disciplined specialists in the field under investigation. If one of them makes claims contrary to the current consensus of their peers (other trained, disciplined specialists in the field, with their own publication records), those very peers must verify the new claims. If they are sufficiently verified, they become the new consensus. Without peer consensus, there can be no scientific progress! The present consensus of working climate scientists for climate change due to anthropogenic global warming is based on multiple lines of verified evidence, accumulated over two centuries by generations of trained, disciplined scientists. So far, the consensus case has grown stronger as more data arrive. So question away, but first try to find out whether your question has already been asked and answered.

 

[Starouscz]

What is the role of news in this ? I think in many cases results are present to the public without easily understandable justification or just plain clickbait with no substance saying scientists found out that .... with basically no sources. This then devaluates the proper research. I think in many case the problem is that the public is not able to reach same and logical steps to the same conclusion. I think new type of "story logic" may help with the emphasis of making sure audience does not get lost or misdirected on the way, but not sure if that could be achieved. Would be interested to measure belief of the reader in articles on different paragraphs

 

[brainchasm]

As always, a good time to bring up Issac Asimov's excellent and cutting essay: https://aphelis.net/wp-content/uploads/ ... orance.pdf

He wrote this in the 80s, and it rings just as true today. One of the many issues is a culture that sneers at knowledge, nerds, academic work, and anything of the sort.

Asimov died while I was writing a book report about him. Had to go back and change all the "is"es to "was"es.

The man had some flaws, but ye gods I miss him.

 

[jeblis]

Just had an argument with my wife about acupuncture. She’s very logical and generally scientific, but has a blind spot here.

People want to believe in certain things and will turn off reasoned thinking on a case by case basis to support it.

What's the blind spot? It's been shown to be effective EVEN WHEN IT'S DONE WRONG. So...what's the blind spot? That she doesn't believe it's effective when it is?

It’s a placebo.

 

[jimisawesome]

What is the role of news in this ? I think in many cases results are present to the public without easily understandable justification or just plain clickbait with no substance saying scientists found out that .... with basically no sources. This then devaluates the proper research. I think in many case the problem is that the public is not able to reach same and logical steps to the same conclusion. I think new type of "story logic" may help with the emphasis of making sure audience does not get lost or misdirected on the way, but not sure if that could be achieved. Would be interested to measure belief of the reader in articles on different paragraphs

If there is science in the news it will almost always be because the University or research center they work at put out a Press Release pushing the report/study. One of the most reported studies in the last 5-10 years is "Misclassification of cardiometabolic health when using body mass index categories in NHANES 2005–2012" aka BMI is Bulls---. This study had write ups in over a 100 different publications because UCLA pushed out Press Release on it and its lead author has no problems with the press.

Problem is the data in the study says exactly the opposite of what the researchers said it said. And more dishonestly the press release and researches push out as talking point that BMI is BS because 30% of healthy weight people have bad markers while 30% of obese people have good markers. See the problem? They flipped the variable but kept the 30% in order to anchor that into peoples mind. If they where honest and said 30% and 70% you think anyone would buy BMI is BS?


The "Biggest Loser Study" was widely reported and I believe ARS covered it. This is a paper with a study size of 14 people and their entire paper revolved around using Excel best fit instead of the half dozen accepted metabolic rate formulas. You use any of them the BL people behave exactly as expected. You use Excel BF on a control group they show the same metabolic damage.

And this is not even the biggest problem areas such as drug research and especially psychology.

 

[Uncivil Servant]

Just saying maybe 'Science' should get its house in order first. You have entire fields where a coin flip has a better chance of being reproduced than peer review research published in quality journals in the field and this is not just psychology and social science even areas of biology are almost this bad (drug research).

Psychology has issues. In fact, the emergence of psychiatry as a separate medical subject is a major part of this, as psychiatry has, especially in the past 40 years since the DSM-III in 1980, become increasingly based on scientific evidence and reproducibility, while psychology has kinda refused to improve.

Drug research is generally pretty good, though. Please ignore the conspiracy theorists

Public Health officials have not exactly wrapped themselves in glory over the last couple of years. To say nothing of how some with PhDs have acted on social media.

Right now everyone in public health is either dealing with intense trauma or pretending that we just have "a little post-traumatic stress". Fuck the fuck off with this fucking hostility to people who have dedicated their lives to keeping you alive. Sorry, but this needed to be said.

The amount of P hacked studies that get major press coverage is still a problem. And you might say hey Jim why you blaming science for what newspapers do, it's because these researchers are sending or approving the sending of press releases that taught their weak studies.

No, that really is a press problem, and it is very bad. Bad enough that Wikipedia's medicine editors had to put in a rule against non-specialist media sources because in that field especially what you find in non-specialized media is so bad that it really is pure luck if it's halfway accurate.

A major part of this is the decline of science journalism. A few major newspapers still keep dedicated science journalists on staff, like Joel Achenbach at the Washington Post, but even he hasn't been able to stop them from publishing idiotic "lab leak" conspiracy theories. Ars is a bit different since it's more specialized, but most media don't have experts on staff.


None of what you're talking about is a problem with science. Most of it is a *you* problem, honestly.

 

[isparavanje]

What is the role of news in this ? I think in many cases results are present to the public without easily understandable justification or just plain clickbait with no substance saying scientists found out that .... with basically no sources. This then devaluates the proper research. I think in many case the problem is that the public is not able to reach same and logical steps to the same conclusion. I think new type of "story logic" may help with the emphasis of making sure audience does not get lost or misdirected on the way, but not sure if that could be achieved. Would be interested to measure belief of the reader in articles on different paragraphs

If there is science in the news it will almost always be because the University or research center they work at put out a Press Release pushing the report/study. One of the most reported studies in the last 5-10 years is "Misclassification of cardiometabolic health when using body mass index categories in NHANES 2005–2012" aka BMI is Bulls---. This study had write ups in over a 100 different publications because UCLA pushed out Press Release on it and its lead author has no problems with the press.

Problem is the data in the study says exactly the opposite of what the researchers said it said. And more dishonestly the press release and researches push out as talking point that BMI is BS because 30% of healthy weight people have bad markers while 30% of obese people have good markers. See the problem? They flipped the variable but kept the 30% in order to anchor that into peoples mind. If they where honest and said 30% and 70% you think anyone would buy BMI is BS?


The "Biggest Loser Study" was widely reported and I believe ARS covered it. This is a paper with a study size of 14 people and their entire paper revolved around using Excel best fit instead of the half dozen accepted metabolic rate formulas. You use any of them the BL people behave exactly as expected. You use Excel BF on a control group they show the same metabolic damage.

And this is not even the biggest problem areas such as drug research and especially psychology.

This is the UCLA press release I found: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 042240.htm

And this is the paper: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4s03d5jz

The press release seems to be arguing that the BMI is an imperfect measure, and we have much better ways to measure what we actually want to measure:

"There are healthy people who could be penalized based on a faulty health measure, while the unhealthy people of normal weight will fly under the radar and won't get charged more for their health insurance," she said. "Employers, policy makers and insurance companies should focus on actual health markers."

What is wrong with this message? Seems reasonable that BMI is merely a proxy for things that we actually know how to measure anyway. I don't see any claim there there's zero correlation.

The paper itself says:

Although obtaining blood markers is more time intensive, invasive, and costly, doing so can foster more accurate diagnosis and improved patient care. If lab markers are absolutely unobtainable, potential solutions are to instead use markers that researchers argue are a more accurate marker of health than BMI, such as physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness, 16–18 waist circumference19 or body fat percentage, 16 or their combination. Regardless of the ultimate solution, the need for improved diagnostic tools related to cardiometabolic health is clear.

 

[Pugilistas]

You see the problem here? Either you admit that science can prove things beyond all doubt or you admit that it can't.

Prove that you are not a brain in a vat being fed a simulated reality through magnetic induction.

"We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled. But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?"

Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7
Activity Recorded M.Y. 2302.22467
TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED

 

[Giant Bucket]

I always thought money is the reason people don't trust science. If we took away borders, global economy, and the snake oil salesman with their pseudo science. There might be a place in the circle of trust for legitimate science. But that would require our world to progress for humanity, not economy, so it's never going to happen.

My other thought is the fact humanity has made shit up for centuries for things they can't understand, it's hardwired in us. So even though there is an explanation for something, if they don't understand the explanation, they make up their own story their minds can understand. Why? Because people's view of education is not equal, never mind issues with accessibility.

Just so everyone is aware, I am pro science even though I don't sound like it. I'm just applying the reality of human sociology.

I don't hate this idea. The concept of "I don't know, let's find out" being an acceptable and even commendable answer to a question for the general populace is fairly recent and not as well accepted as I'd hope. History is full of examples of people making shit up because not knowing the answer to a question — any question! — was/is considered weak or damaging to a person's status or credibility. They're "supposed to know," even in situations where it's completely unreasonable for them to know.