Topic: Conservative distrust of science

[superdave]

http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2012/04/02/25823/decline-in-conservatives-trust-science

Michael Shermer just killed it here.  His points were spot on and he was clear and easy to understand.

[AngleWyrm]

He makes an interesting criticism. My favorite part is:

They say peer review journals and those in the scientific community don’t go as hard on papers that uphold the dominant narrative, while subjecting findings that don’t to harsh scrutiny or ignoring them altogether. They say that, all too often, science is used to push agendas and scientists suffer from expectation bias.

Does science and the scientific community lean a little to the left? Looking at it objectively, is science not as objective as many of us would like to think? Do conservatives have a compelling and legitimate reason not to trust science?

[superdave]

He makes an interesting criticism. My favorite part is:

They say peer review journals and those in the scientific community don’t go as hard on papers that uphold the dominant narrative, while subjecting findings that don’t to harsh scrutiny or ignoring them altogether. They say that, all too often, science is used to push agendas and scientists suffer from expectation bias.

Does science and the scientific community lean a little to the left? Looking at it objectively, is science not as objective as many of us would like to think? Do conservatives have a compelling and legitimate reason not to trust science?

But if you think about it this is ok.  It follows directly from the concept of extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  Controversial ideas should be scrutinized more heavily, because they make more demanding claims.

[andrewclunn]

Not always a fan of Shermer, but I liked him here.  The other guest was a joke who wore his conservative bias on his sleeve and that last caller was a liberal idiot frothing at the mouth to defend their side.  I will say that my time in higher education gave me a greater appreciation for the hard sciences, and lead to a near complete dismissal of the gray sciences.  Really economics, sociology, and the like are bias beyond hope.  If scientists wish to restore the faith moderates (let alone conservatives) in science, then the label of 'science' should be revoked from those fields.

[Soldier of FORTRAN]

I think anyone who talks about 'faith in science' is taking the wrong approach.

edit: I just started the program and the first guest is framing this as 'faith in science' and the show host played to and reinforced the framing of liberals bearing a high degree of faith in science.  They aren't referencing science at all. They're positing a strawman and talking about conservatives and conservative cultural notions. 

edit2: Guest two's better than guest one.  But the host just directed back to parsing scientific inquiry in terms of 'belief system'

edit 3: Man, these god damn callers, haha.  Shermer's doing great, though.

edit 4: The conservative think tank guy said your head's more susceptible than your gut to nonsense, haha

[daemonowner]

@andrew

I'm taking a first year psych class at Vic Uni in NZ, and I know just how you feel. 4 weeks of social psychology is torturous. So little evidence, so much speculation. You get the best, most rigorous, most objective experiments performed in the history of psychology and there is still debate as to the exact reasons. Something like Nature Nurture can only be resolved as 'its not just nature, and its not just nurture, its a bit of both'... it pisses me off.