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from the whom-do-you-trust...-and-why? dept.
Given that collaboration [in science] is the norm, you may be asking yourself the eternal question: Who cares? How does the image of a lone scientist hero cause any danger to me?
The problem arises when there is a debate about a scientific topic. Following this structure, debate is a necessary and encouraged part of the scientific process. This debate happens before the idea is released to anyone outside of a few scientists and, while it can become heated at times, takes place with great respect between proponents of different viewpoints.
The danger can come when scientific results are released to the public. Our society now provides a platform for anyone to comment, regardless of his or her education, experience or even knowledge of the topic at hand.
While this is an excellent method of disseminating knowledge, it can also provide a platform for any opinion—regardless of the weight of data behind it—to be equal to that released in more traditional scientific ways.
Particularly in today's largely populist climate, people are looking to see the lone scientist hero overthrow the perceived dominance of facts coming from academia.
And herein lies the problem. In this situation, the opinion of a lone commenter may be considered on equal footing with that of tens or hundreds of people who have made the subject their life's work to ensure their interpretations are correct.
Everybody is entitled to their own scientific opinion, but everybody is not entitled to their own scientific facts?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 22 2017, @11:13PM (1 child)
You mean such as the large and publicly accessible data sets that NOAA, NASA, and countless other governmental and research institutions have out there?
You mean like the numerous publicly available journal articles subject to peer review, including analysis of those same data sets?
Have you even looked for the data? From what I've seen, everything you have asked for is available and more, excepting the actual computer code itself... but if you aren't going to trust their conclusions, shouldn't you be doing your own "clean" analysis of the data yourself rather than their "flawed code?"
Are you sure you aren't letting your preconceived notions bias you? From what I've seen, the people you are attacking seem to be open and transparent... at least in comparison to the groups like ExxonMobile who are saying, "we have scientists who disagree with those clearly-bias university researchers... but you don't need to see our evidence, trust us."
(Score: 2) by Virindi on Thursday November 23 2017, @01:40AM
Yes. A lot is open, for sure...for instance, NASA temperature measurements.
The part that is not open, as far as I can tell, is the actual model runs. Computer code, input data, raw output data.
A result which is not subject to being reproduced, is not falsifiable. This same problem occurs in other branches of science as well: papers which do not adequately describe experimental methods used.
In the case of a model, it would be expected to get completely different results if you used different code and different input values.
But, I wasn't just talking about climate science either. I know we latched on to that, but really the discussion was more of a general nature. And yes, there are branches of science where that kind of "full data" does exist, such as particle physics.
I think you are casting me too much as an "evil denier". I never stated a position on this subject at all.