> The point is that both sides are prone to spouting bullshit

I expect that you can provide examples of this. Until now, the ones spouting bullshit is the anti science one.

>I expect that you can provide examples of this

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-fda-drug...

So when an authority says that something is safe, and later turn out not to be so, isn't the original claim just bullshit? Or is it not bullshit because that is the best we could have done, but we still sold it as legit, without saying about the flaws in our process, which is why I mentioned selectively saying the truth...

I am pretty sure one can come up with other serious cases where "science" of today turned out to be bullshit later. The famous study that both ant and pro vaxxers tout are a very good example. Pretty sure that have been similar issues recently regarding diet, pesticide use, use of plastics and stuff like that...

EDIT: Ultimately, I think the majority of what we consider as "science" today (except maths/physics) is a somewhat grey area and is prone to various kinds of manipulation should not be really accepted without any sort of challenge. And just because something is peer reviewed does not make it the word of god...

> So when an authority says that something is safe, and later turn out not to be so, isn't the original claim just bullshit?

No, it is not bullshit.

> The famous study that both ant and pro vaxxers tout are a very good example

Are you talking about the study that the people that has passed this bill would be glad to use?

Yes, that study was bullshit and a fraud, and no, the pro vaccination people didn't did ant bullshit. > EDIT: Ultimately, I think the majority of what we consider as "science" today (except maths/physics) is a somewhat grey area and is prone to various kinds of manipulation should not be really accepted without any sort of challenge. And just because something is peer reviewed does not make it the word of god...

No, it is not the word of god, but when a topic has been proved for decades and innumerable experiments it is fairly sure that the science is sound.

And yes, I'm talking about the Theory of Evolution and Climate Change basis. The TWO topics that this bill will be against.

By the way, one is a physics topic.

There's an entire discipline regarding how and when science switches paradigms, to borrow a Kuhnian word.

I think the best guard against any of this is the old Feynman test. Can you explain the idea sufficiently to a lay person that they can understand the idea? Then we understand it. Until then, there's more work to do and you cannot malign anyone for disbelieving you.

> There's an entire discipline regarding how and when science switches paradigms, to borrow a Kuhnian word.

Thing that has nothing to do with this bill

> I think the best guard against any of this is the old Feynman test.

And this has nothing to do with this bill.

Theory of Evolution and Climate change has been explained sufficiently in laymen terms to be comprehended by anyone.

What this bill does is trying to negate the science without having anything to do if it has been tested or explained in simple terms

Sorry, I was playing a bit of devil's advocate, or at the very least the pragmatist. This bill is terrible, I agree with you. But I think we have to be careful when we declare the scientific method as the end all be all of knowledge. I would argue that at this point climate change is NOT explainable to a layperson, or else we wouldn't be in this mess. I'm almost as afraid of people who aggressively want to sequester carbon, as those who propose we do nothing.

My point about paradigms is that science moves in demonstrable paradigms and it is very, very difficult (if not impossible) for an entrenched scientist to move beyond the paradigm in which they work.

The best guard against this is limited lifespans.

I'll also throw in there that if we had a Feynman-esque way of explaining evolution to high school students, we wouldn't be in this mess, but it turns out gene expression and the development of photo-sensitive skin is actually very difficult to comprehend completely.

But the mess is almost exclusively in the US.

How do you explain it?

Because of the rise of Christian fundamentalism in this country. Many of the most ardent supporters of the movement here are ex-pats from Australia, so I'd wager either they've all come here, or some shenanigans are up in Australia too but they don't get global press coverage.