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Re:Why science is so hard to believe by pdonis on Monday February 16, 2015 @11:15AM (#9057528)
A major factor missing from the article is that scientists, when they translate their work into layperson's terms, often don't take care to distinguish between different levels of confidence in their conclusions. Scientific theories that are nailed down by massive experimental data and a track record of predictions accurate to many decimal places are talked about the same way, by scientists, as theories that are still being developed and refined and don't have anywhere near the same level of confidence. Even in a single field (e.g., physics), scientists often aren't careful to distinguish the solid base from speculative models at the frontiers (e.g., the Standard Model of particle physics vs. string theory, or the standard hot Big Bang model of cosmology from inflation and various speculations about what came before inflation). This means that, once a lay person sees that any scientific conclusion turned out to be wrong, which is going to happen because science is not perfect, they think it means Science is wrong, period--because the scientists themselves painted the picture that way.
Re:Why science is so hard to believe by goalieca on Monday February 16, 2015 @11:19AM (#9057544)
When you're discussing the edge of theory in physics, you can make some pretty neat TV shows and maybe get some kids interested in science. I loved watching those crazy speculative documentaries about the universe and all that.

However, when you're discussing the edge of science in a health or socio-economic field, people "hear about studies" all the time in the news. Many are conflicting. Some things go on and live their own lives. Some things lend themselves to a certain ideological thinking and despite being proven wrong later on, go on to live in very awful ways. Eg: vaccines scares.

Re:Why science is so hard to believe by jghn on Monday February 16, 2015 @11:39AM (#9057649)
The real problem with "hear about studies" is that by the time things filter down to the average person the stories are completely watered down and spun to make some sensational headline.

Even without the simple headline grabbing, all nuance is lost, which is the cause of a lot of the "XYZ is good!" ... "No, XYZ is bad!" confusion - the reality is that "XYZ is good under these experimental conditions, for some definition of good" and vice versa.

Re:Why science is so hard to believe by forkandwait on Monday February 16, 2015 @11:47AM (#9057701)
Great articulation.

Additionally, much medical science (and almost all of social/ psych/ econ "science") is in the very low level of confidence realm (a few studies based on survey / interview data, or maybe just a single study hyped by lame media).