Intermediate sci knowledge associated with overconfidence and negative attitudes

Re:Intermediate sci knowledge associated with overconfidence... by trimethylpurine on Friday September 15, 2023 @03:28AM (#37519703)

This goes back to the comments on definition. Much of the misinformation on covid was largely due to the general public having a misunderstanding of what can NOT be called science. For example; when a research paper is peer reviewed by its author (e.g. Pfizer reviewing its own drug research) that's clearly not science. Conversely, when the heads of multiple top university epidemiology departments come together to speak out about it, that should be regarded as science. What happened with COVID is that the media declared itself the authority on science, most of the public believed them, and most scientists were pushed aside or stuffed with a sock and labeled "deniers." This altogether framed science as the bad guy. That is; what you described as science in your comment is actually not describing science at all. It's describing the media.

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Re:Intermediate sci knowledge associated with overconfidence... by mike_hearn on Friday September 15, 2023 @05:56AM (#37520691)

Ironically you're presenting textbook mis-definitions of science, the exact problem being discussed in this thread.

> when a research paper is peer reviewed by its author .. that's clearly not science

Peer review is something academia evolved only relatively recently. Science long pre-dates peer review, and you can do science without peer review (or with useless peer review) just like you can write programs without code review. As recently as Einstein, peer review was being seen as some offensive newfangled thing which he had no time for.

The goal of peer review is to try and ensure that claims that are presented as being scientific actually are. It frequently fails at that task but even when it works it's still just a safety check, not an actual required component of true science.

> when the heads of multiple top university epidemiology departments come together to speak out about it, that should be regarded as science

A bunch of academics making an announcement is definitely not science. The whole point of science is that it doesn't rely on People With Titles deciding by fiat what's true. That's what religion is!

> What happened with COVID is that ... most scientists were pushed aside

We have very different memories of these events.

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Re:Intermediate sci knowledge associated with overconfidence... by trimethylpurine on Friday September 15, 2023 @06:19AM (#37520860)

You're right. I should have said, good science. You're welcome to dabble as deep into whatever mental hole you like without taking any criticism. But in and of itself, such a take on science is deserving of criticism, and has been criticized by scientific philosophers for centuries.

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Re:Intermediate sci knowledge associated with overconfidence... by trimethylpurine on Friday September 15, 2023 @09:07AM (#37522340)

>We have very different memories of these events.

Oh? In what field are you working?

>A bunch of academics making an announcement is definitely not science.

A bunch of heads of Ivy League Universities who are the foremost experts on debunking junk epidemiology and who have all contributed significantly to the field are more wortg listening to than the media who has current joint ownership and board control of Pfizer. Even if only from a Bayesian logical perspective. Conflicts of such interests don't make for good science. But of course, as the general public doesn't know the difference, you can tell anyone whatever you want. Well, anyone except actual scientists.

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