Why the public should not “believe in science”
Instead, we should publicly and freely discuss it
I am currently hard at work in preparing several papers and in trying to make headway regarding completing my medical education. However, in this post, I would like to briefly explain why I think we should abandon this idea that the public should “believe in science”.
Science is not a creed. One cannot "believe in science". Science is not just a method, either, though the scientific method is certainly an important part of science. Above all, science is a social process that produces outputs that can be used by various parties, whether interested specialists, entrepreneurs, technologists, corporations, or professions, for example, or by the public at large.
The social process by which scientists generate, make, and popularize scientific claims about the world is often contaminated. First, the claims of scientists often enter popular discourse because they are expedient for powerful parties, due to their policy implications, who have an interest in these claims being widely disseminated. Second, scientists in their own turn are incentivized to tailor both their research and their public claims to appeal to these powerful parties, who can help these scientists advance their personal careers.
Scientific claims made to the public can have radical implications for the organization of society. Free, open, public discussion about science can help to reveal some of this contamination and ensure that these ideas and their implications for social organization best serve the public, and are not simply imposed upon the public at the behest of these powerful interests at the public’s expense. Critical science journalists, scientists, and communicators who are well versed both in scientific methodology and in the policy and political context of scientific claims made in the popular discourse can help to facilitate these discussions by critically examining and explaining these claims.
This group of people is also biased in various ways. To work out those biases, in turn, we need a plurality of voices and opinions.
All of this discussion about scientific claims helps to ensure that science serves the public, i.e. that science’s implications for the way society is organized best serve the public’s interest.
We do not need to “believe in” some monolithic “science” that only takes place according to the “scientific method”. And in fact, we shouldn't. Because both science and science in popular discourse often serves powerful interests and is sometimes or even often tailored to these interests rather than strictly to the benefit of society, for the public to take such discourse at face value would be harmful to it. The public must play an active, critical role in the reception of scientific claims.
Furthermore, even when public scientific discourse is fully intended by the scientists who promote it to benefit society, open discussion by the public serves as an important check to ensure that it really does, not just according to intention but in actual fact.
Now, on an individual level, people ought to use science as it benefits their lives, as a tool. If individuals are really interested in how science impacts society, they can also learn about that and even become involved in these discussions as well.
But again, the purpose of all of this is for all of us, individually and collectively, to decide how science serves us and helps us achieve our goals, rather than to take science as some kind of creed, for all of the above reasons. Not unimportantly, taking science as a creed even in the most ideal of circumstances has nothing to do with science at all, either. Even scientists don't do that. Knowing that science is a flawed social process, neither should we.
A classic example of how “the science” is subject to intentional distortion, I give you the principal claims of these assert that “the release of CO2 into the atmosphere as a result of humans burning oil, gas and coal is producing changes to climate that will be catastrophic, and this is settled science “.
A good look at a wider range of peer reviewed research teaches us than none of the foregoing claims are true. “The science” is so severely politicised that public debate on the topic is systematically censored and proponents of such debates are smeared & marginalised.
As in other fields of endeavour, money is used to maintain & increase the shrillness of the warnings broadcast to the public. Researchers rapidly learn that only certain kinds of research topics get funded & only certain types of results get published and amplified in the media.
It’s not a surprise to find that some “climate scientists” are willing to perpetuate statements & assumptions that they must know are unsupported by the empirical evidence.
The situation is so distorted that the general public largely doesn’t suspect this & does what most people do in similar situations: assume it’s not quite as bad as those pushing them to accept restrictions on their lives are saying, but also accept that there’s surely something in it? After all, most people can’t conceive of an enormous lie being said & not being corrected.
However, my own searching, reading and listening to a wide range of opinions leads me to be quite secure in saying that not only is there no evidence whatsoever that our activities are even capable of changing climate at the planetary scale, but that there’s been no meaningful change in climate associated with industrialisation at all. The claimed modest warming since 1880 is wholly explained by the “urban heat island effect”, where the few long term weather stations that exist have mostly moved, as a consequence of urban development, from rural to suburban or from suburban to city locations, which are naturally warmer. Taking only the stations not subject to the urban heat island effect, there’s been no warming at all.
That marries up with satellite data which, though only of modest duration, accords more with these latter observations and is in conflict with the commonly pushed agenda of “global warming”.
There’s an entirely separate line of evidence that destroys utterly as overt lying the very idea that CO2 is a powerful enough “greenhouse gas” to make any difference at all to global climate. I’m convinced that it isn’t. There’s extensive evidence showing that historical fluctuations in atmospheric temperature always precede changes in atmospheric CO2, which follows in the same direction, after a delay of hundreds of years. The most reasonable conclusion is that external factors, mostly changes in solar output and variations in earths orbit and inclination to the ecliptic, are responsible for changes in temperature. Furthermore, CO2 is as close to zero influence as you could find & is merely a trailing & passive indicator of temperature change caused by these external factors (I’m referring here to ice core data reported by several different research groups and countries). Interestingly, the probable source of increased atmospheric CO2 isn’t our burning of carbon based fuels but the oceans. Warmer water holds less dissolved CO2 than does cold water. When the atmosphere cools, the oceans then act as a sink for the reducing atmospheric concentrations of CO2.
Counter narratives like the one I’ve summarised used to be reported in mainstream TV documentaries until as recently as 15 years ago.
Like lies about pandemics, stories of climate catastrophes are also lies, promulgated by the same group of crooked chances. The same group has been pushing a third lie, that the world is overpopulated & must be reduced. There’s no objective evidence for this at all.
So much for “the science”.
By the way, in over 40 years of contact with scientists both academic and industrial, I’ve never heard a single scientist use the phrase “the science”.
Science is like a hammer, where its power can only be realized by the person wielding it. Do we believe in hammers?
Of course not.
Science doesn't have a hierarchy or any sort of authoritarian structure. No one is in charge. Science itself mostly exists within a consensus bubble. Those we listen too, are the ones that have achieved some level of social status or fame within that bubble, or these days, possibly from a viral tiktok video. I think a mediocre scientists could be a notable figure by simply hiring a PR firm.
I was debating someone on this site who claimed, he had faith in science. I don't know what that means either. Faith as a concept being applied to a falsification process, or the scientific method, seems a bit odd. I argued the point briefly, telling him that faith was best left with the faithful, as they are far more skilled in wielding that beast. The guy blocked me after that, although I think I presented a reasonable argument.
To claim belief in science is literally belief in those doing science, and everyone associated with the messages coming out of a consensus bubble, both directly and indirectly. And that's everyone and no one to a certain extent, claiming they know the science.
The whole concept of believing in science is extremely convoluted.
Keep in mind, I'm an atheist. No, I do not believe in science, nor do I disbelieve in science, anymore than I have faith in a hammer. I have confidence in my ability to wield a hammer, most swings, but I'm also reasonably confident I'll smash my damn finger with it every once in a while.