Anita Makri argues that the form of science communicated in popular media leaves the public vulnerable to false certainty.
What is truth? How do we find it and does it still carry weight in public debate? Given recent political events, these are important and urgent questions. But of the two industries I work in that are concerned with truth — science and journalism — only the latter has seriously engaged and looked for answers. Scientists need to catch up, or they risk further marginalization in a society that is increasingly weighing evidence and making decisions without them.
[...] What's overlooked by many is how science is losing its relevance as a source of truth. To reclaim this relevance, scientists, communicators, institutions and funders must work to change the way that socially relevant science is presented to the public. This is not about better media training for researchers. It demands a rethink about the kind of science that we want to communicate to broader society. This message may sound familiar but the new focus on post-truth shows there is now a tangible danger that must be addressed.
[...] If the public is better equipped to navigate this science, it would restore trust and improve understanding of different verdicts, and perhaps help people to see through some of the fake news that circulates on scientific matters.
http://www.nature.com/news/give-the-public-the-tools-to-trust-scientists-1.21307
What do you think, will the general public trust these tools, if available ?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:12PM
I was once told that the difference between uneducated and stupid is that you can't fix stupid.
Some people have such conviction that they will not listen to reasoning. The only way I've seen this change is if they are personally affected, meaning for example that those who don't believe that the climate is warming and that it is bad if that happens won't be convinced until their house is swallowed by the sea or they die from a drought.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:52PM
When a man must take responsibility for his own assets, then he gets smart pretty quick! It's too easy to fuck things up when you're wasting the resources of someone else.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by jmorris on Wednesday January 18 2017, @04:13PM
And this is why Socialism / Progressivism must fail. Every. Single. Time.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @04:31PM
You dummies still do t get it. Capitalism requires serious regulation to prevent economic imbalance, and socialism requires strict limits on JTS application. Neither system is a fixall, and this magic idea of capitalism being most efficient is a crock of shit.
The answer is a mix of both, socialism for programs that are too important to let human greed fuck with, and capitalism for areas where flexibility is required.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:03PM
There is nothing stricter than a Free Market (a market based on voluntary trade); through the interactions, a robust framework of contracts will inevitably develop, which will always be far more fine-grained, resilient, and sophisticated than anything that could be produced by know-nothing paper-pushing bureaucrats who allocate resources at the the point of a gun.
Every so-called "market failure" has its origin in government meddling.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:21PM
I'll take market failures over company towns that like to dress up slavery... A system of contracts, uh huh. Care to address how such contracts will be enforced?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:46PM
Contract enforcement is not magical; the "justice" industry is not magical. Such a service must be brought into being as with any other service in the free market: Through voluntary association.
The nature of contract enforcement is necessarily something that is specified in the contract itself, and is therefore subject to voluntary agreement ahead of the interactions in question; you must agree to the rules up front, or otherwise face the frightening prospect of engaging in behavior that is not well defined and which could therefore have any sort of consequences.
The Law is just the collection of contracts between individuals, and it evolves by variation and selection along with every other aspect of the complex system known as "society".
Why in the world would you prefer a blessed, ordained monopoly on violence? Well, you wouldn't; that's why there's never been One World Government, and that's why there never will be.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:52PM
We're still yammering on about this magical world where men are angels who respect contracts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:58PM
I... just... cannot fathom why you are so blind to what is being said!
There is NO requirement that men be angels; if anything, the ones who rely on men being angels are the ones who propose a blessed, ordained monopoly on violence that is called "government".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @07:58PM
Yeah, you're right, men aren't angels. So when the contract enforcer comes to force me to uphold my end of the contract, I'll just blow his head off.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:55PM
It is amusing that you cry about the big evil government (which is basically a massive system of contracts defined in these weird social contracts called "laws") and then promote some service brought into being by the free market. So lets all trust this one organization over here, but not the one over there. There is no blessed and ordained monopoly on violence, that capacity is given to local police, state police, federal agencies, and then the military. The system you are looking for already exists, and frankly I will not advocate for a return to the wild west. We can barely control corporate activity as it is, your imaginary free market would have zero control beyond the specific language of a contract. How do you propose to handle environmental pollution? How do you prevent collusion and artificial monopolies / cartels from being developed? We have laws against them now yet it still happens (yay corruption) but in your future it would be so easily done over one dinner party. The return to dictatorship and monarchy would happen faster than you think.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:09PM
Legislation is not a contract; it is a dictate.
Get it yet?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:16PM
You don't get it. You're trying to reinvent human society but all you have is a new buzzword and the magic idea of the "free market". Legislation is a dictate in the same way a contract is a dictate. They both have clearly defined expectations and consequences. If you do away with all government, to be replaced by profit motivated organizations, how do you handle murders? There are plenty of human activities that have no profit built into them, and trying to apply a profit motive will result in corners being cut to save money. If law enforcement is a for-profit agency then your new world becomes a playground for the rich. Dystopian future FTL.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:28PM
It is in my self-interest to live in a community where murder is not tolerated, and where murderers face the well-defined consequences of their actions.
Get it yet?
Self-interest is everything.
(Score: 1) by charon on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:38PM
... You mean in a place where there are laws against murder and a police force charged by the government to apprehend criminals and a judicial system to try them and a prison system to prevent them from killing again?
I guess I'm not sure which AC you are, but if you're the one who is obsessed with anarcho-libertarianism, I hear it's boom times in Sudan. If you're hard enough, that is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:54PM
Legislation produces dictates; the market produces law (e.g., contracts).
For hundreds of years its OK to brew, sell, buy, and drink beer; then, one day, it isn't—and you'll be thrown in a cage for noncompliance. Then one day, it's OK again. (This isn't fantasy; it really happened in "The Land of the Free", among many other dictates).
(Score: 1) by charon on Wednesday January 18 2017, @07:17PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @07:32PM
See here [soylentnews.org].
The "Justice" industry is not magical; contract enforcement is just another service in the market.
(Score: 1) by charon on Wednesday January 18 2017, @07:46PM
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @08:05PM
"Blow their head off" and "if men were angels" AC here. Good, I'm glad somebody gets it. I've played out this little thought experiment and as a post above indicates, I just end up re-inventing government in an effort to prevent my warlord caricature from just blowing the head off the contract enforcer when he comes for the cow.
I call the guy blowing the contract enforcer's head off a warlord because no matter how many guns this contract enforcer has, the warlord as n+1 guns fanatically devoted to him and his cause. Well, at least until the contract enforcer finally has enough guns to overcome the warlord, but at that point I believe we usually refer to such a contract enforcer as a "government."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @10:58PM
That's the nature of evolution by variation and selection: You escape the "turtles all the way down" by realizing that it's an iterative process, not a recursive process; the old modes of organization are used to construct new modes of organization, and often all traces of the older modes dissipate and are forgotten.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @11:58PM
Except you are describing a simplified version of "government". You can come up with new methods of organizing and running a government, but don't fool yourself that you're breaking out of that concept.
You're like the theoretical mathematician talking to a bunch of engineers. Sure, your version of reality is theoretically possible but the chances of it coming true are the same as you randomly teleporting across the room. Quantum mechanics says your subatomic particles could do it, but the odds are slightly against you.
(Score: 1) by charon on Thursday January 19 2017, @01:08AM
Ah, I think I see where the misunderstanding lies. You are taking the theory of evolution, which says creatures will (over a span of time) adapt to become successful in their environment, as a direct and predictive analogy for human styles of government. The problem with this idea is that evolution is a dumb process. Millions of creatures die, either through unfitness of the original state or mutation in a wrong direction. Humans, on the other hand, are not so dumb. They will try lots of things and remember the results and, yes, iterate.
Since your motto is self-interest first, guess which way the iterations move? In a power vacuum, those who are willing to take what they want without fear will iterate their way into being a defacto government in weeks, if not sooner. And I dare say no government has ever iterated in a direction of less power without revolution because the humans involved have a gravy train they will not give up.
I don't dispute that most people think of themselves first; I don't dispute that governments tend towards tyranny over time; I don't dispute that reform would be a great thing for everyone except the current governmental officers and their billionaire owners. I do, however, dispute that any other way is better. The fairy tale of strict free market Libertarianism leads only to anarchy, local strongmen, and eventually feudalism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @03:04AM
>"anarcho-libertarianism, I hear it's boom times in Sudan"
Have you ever bothered to look up the obvious rebuttal to this argument? I ask because most people won't bother continuing the conversation once something on that level is brought up, so it is possible no one has ever pointed it out to you.
(Score: 1) by charon on Thursday January 19 2017, @03:19AM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 19 2017, @05:35AM
Tell me why people who claim to want to live in a place that has no government
The obvious rebuttal is that Sudan does have a government, a particularly ugly and broken one. You're probably thinking of Somalia which has almost nothing beyond a bunch of local-scale governments. Let us note that Somalia is better off than when it had an official national government. But maybe if Somalia had a government, it would be doing stuff like flying arcologies, right?
Also, if you use the phrase "obvious rebuttal" too much, you turn into khallow.
Good that this phrase is annoying you. I use it when people spout stuff with blatant problems that they could have addressed with a little thought ahead of time. I use that phrase a lot because there are a lot of people here doing that.
(Score: 1) by charon on Thursday January 19 2017, @06:08AM
The evident rejoinder is that you dodged the question I asked. I made an error (hey look, I admitted it) when saying Sudan was at the forefront of ungoverned lands. The question was: tell me why the people who say they want to live in a place that has no government don't live in a place that has no government? I said nothing about arcologies or other fictions.
My prediction came true, you said it again and turned into khallow!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 19 2017, @07:30AM
The question was: tell me why the people who say they want to live in a place that has no government don't live in a place that has no government?
Probably because they want other things as well. And you can make the good point that places with government seem to provide those other things much better than the places without governments.
I agree that elsewhere the assertions that somehow people without backbone or organization are going to magically figure out how to appropriately respond to externalities. The anti-government ideologies are incomplete. Which is why I'm an advocate for government reduction rather than government elimination.
My prediction came true, you said it again and turned into khallow!
I'm sure the process is reversible. I'm only meddling a little in God's domain. Let me twist some more knobs.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:54PM
Your basic concept is deeply flawed. Its an intriguing idea that could be applied in various places / manners, but that is all. Like the hippy communes back in the day it is an idealistic fantasy that will not survive reality. Do you get it yet? Self interest isn't everything, that statement alone shows how blinded you are by the ideology. Plenty of examples of altruism exist, and you have to dig really hard to come up complicated excuses as to why they are really just examples of self-interest at work.
Nihilism, Self interest / preservation, Pure Virtue, these are all philosophical extremes that can't survive on their own. But some people have their minds broadened by one of these topics and then they close back up around their newfound Truth. They all go together, focus on one only to the detriment of yourself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @07:00PM
Self-interest does not preclude altruism; it is in your self-interest to live in a community where there is altruism; it is in your self-interest to feel good about being altruistic, etc.
Self-interest is everything. Embrace this fact of existence, so that you can help build society in a way that works with the Universe rather than against it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @10:06PM
1 : unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others
2 : behavior by an animal that is not beneficial to or may be harmful to itself but that benefits others of its species
The definition actually does preclude self-interest. It does not exclude it however, you can have an act that is altruistic and self centered, which then means your motivations are a mix of both. "Self interest" is not a universal law and you sound more like a Social Darwinist. You are suffering from hubris, you've seen/read some stuff about self preservation being biologically programmed into us (probably a Dawkins fan) and you've fallen for the seductive theory that reduces all behavior to selfishly motivated game theory.
Self interest is what leads to warlords and dictators, they believe they have the right to force their will upon others. The strong eat the weak, eugenics, slavery. Yes, that is where your path leads when you put self-interest above all else. What's the point of paying people if you have the means to force them? Save more resources for yourself and the chosen elite...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @10:22PM
Ah yes, you sound like a more scientific version of satanism. The strong eat the weak. At least you're more of a zen version with "self-interest".
Altruism is not a part of self-interest, it is in fact the complete opposite. Its up to you to untangle your neural pathways, just realize a lot of people have already thought about this and altruism has not yet been merged with self-interest. You are simply doing mental gymnastics to make the world fit your internal viewpoint.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @01:34AM
Jesus Christ. I hate it when these college freshmen who just found Ayn Rand show up in the interwebs.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by NewNic on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:50PM
That may be true, but it misses a key point: the issue with free markets is that they don't concern themselves with externalities. For example, climate change. Free markets will tend to push costs onto other people if possible. Unrestricted free markets can also result in monopolies.
As a society, we need to be concerned with those costs and monopolies. That's why unrestricted free markets are a bad idea.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Wednesday January 18 2017, @07:06PM
Correction: Unrestricted markets over the long run naturally develop into monopolies.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Wednesday January 18 2017, @11:35PM
Correction: Unrestricted markets over the long run naturally develop into monopolies.
If only we had evidence to support your empty assertion. Somehow restaurants have never developed into monopolies. You have to take into account things like barrier to entry.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Thursday January 19 2017, @03:09AM
Bell Telephone, Standard Oil, Micro$erft, Google; need I go on?
.
And what is it with the flood of libertariantard ACs posting against a weary and lone charon? Is there a libertarian conference in town, or did mothers everywhere suddenly turn their no-good sons out of the basement?
.
And finally: Goverment, as a service, by contract? Oh, I get it! A joke! So, I enter into a free contract with government to enforce my other free contracts with all my like-minded libertariantards. So far so good. But what guarantees that that contract will be respected? So we need to contract with a higher body to enforce our contract with a government! Problem solved? No likely, since that same applies to that contract as well, so we will need another, higher, one. And another, and another, and, as someone said already, it is turtles all the way up. So, what all this means is: libertarianism is dumb. But hardly something that needs proving, that is.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 19 2017, @05:27AM
Bell Telephone, Standard Oil, Micro$erft, Google; need I go on?
You sure do. The first one is the only actual persistent monopoly on that list and it was government enforced. The thing people don't get is that monopolies are ephemeral, except when enforced by a government. For example, Standard Oil only achieved its market dominance for a short time. By the time of the break up in 1911, it had already lost considerable market share to competitors and actually became more profitable through the break up (which incidentally .
We similarly see Microsoft's market share declining from its highest market share in the 1990s - not only due to competition from other systems, but also from its own older products (Windows 7, which is no longer sold, has larger market share [netmarketshare.com] than its two successors combined).
And Google has the most ephemeral market of all. It only has dominant market share because it has the best search engine product, which includes a particularly unobtrusive advertising system (which is its actual product).
(Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday January 19 2017, @06:45AM
Oh, khallow! Oh my dear and fluffy khallow! Oh my khallow that exists in a dimension that ordinary mortals cannot possibly comprehend! Yellowstone! Coulter's Hell! Everyone thought Coulter was lying, and so by the principle of internet over generalization, khallow must be lying. Unless, of course, he has ever run the Coulter Run. Has to be naked and barefoot through prickly pear cactus, I am lead to understand.
But monopolies. Yes, all capitalism tends to monopoly. We do not even need to produce evidence! True by definition. Take any successful business, one that has eliminated all its competitors: monopoly. Even in, as you mentioned, restuarants: have it your way? Over one Billion plus served? Did you not see all the Sly Stallone movies where Taco Bell ends up being the only restuarant? No? One has Wesley Snipes and Sandra Bullocks in it, quite good, for the genre. But that only makes the point.
The only thing that can stop a bad monolopy is a good monopoly! (Feel free to substitute "guns" in this scenario. So we need the Good monopoly of the "Social Will" or as Rousseau termed it, the "General Will", to counteract those selfish, greedy, life-extending, heterodox sciencing Trump-advising "tech" Captains of InternetIndustry. Rockefeller, in his dotage, used to hire mothers who had just given birth, that he might suckle at their breasts and imbibe the first milk (stealing it from their babies, no doubt) and thus live forever. Didn't work. Peter Thiel is engaged in much the same endeavor now.
.
With great wealth comes great insanity. Citizen Kane. And great wealth only comes from monopoly. And great wealth always accumulates in a capitalist system. Ergo, my Dear Dr. Khallow!!! Capitalism tends toward monopoly. Deny it at your peril. I have another tarbaby for you, B'rer Fox!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 19 2017, @07:31AM
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday January 19 2017, @07:39AM
Back atcha, bro!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 19 2017, @07:53AM
Yes, all capitalism tends to monopoly. We do not even need to produce evidence! True by definition.
is blatantly false. One merely needs to read an actual definition of capitalism:
An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state:
Your proof by Sylvester Stallone movie is a waste of time.
So we need the Good monopoly of the "Social Will" or as Rousseau termed it, the "General Will", to counteract those selfish, greedy, life-extending, heterodox sciencing Trump-advising "tech" Captains of InternetIndustry.
Do you even think with that mind? Without competition, how are you going to find out whether this part of the social will is better than that part?
Rockefeller, in his dotage, used to hire mothers who had just given birth, that he might suckle at their breasts and imbibe the first milk (stealing it from their babies, no doubt) and thus live forever. Didn't work.
No doubt because he was doing it wrong. You have to pick the right mothers, of course. It's a process that is guaranteed to eventually succeed.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday January 19 2017, @08:37AM
Fine. I'll note that the line
Yes, all capitalism tends to monopoly. We do not even need to produce evidence! True by definition.
is blatantly false. One merely needs to read an actual definition of capitalism:
No, it is true by definition! Do you actually thing you can get away with supplying the "khallow" modified libertarian definition of "capitalism" and have that actually make any difference to the argument? Fie! Fie! Yon uncouth lickspittle of grevious men! Knave of the idols of moneybags! Mendacious toady of mercantile swindlers! (This is the part where I resort to namecalling, but in my defense, if all you can do is assert my definition is false, well, because it is, what do you expect me to do?) The public might be able to trust scientists at some point, but economists have sold their soles to the dark snide.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 19 2017, @09:03AM
Do you actually thing you can get away with supplying the "khallow" modified libertarian definition of "capitalism" and have that actually make any difference to the argument?
Sure can. Because it's the Oxford Dictionary definition of capitalism. And why in the world are you even bothering with this semantics argument? Your time might not be valuable, but it is a waste of my time to have to copy/paste a dictionary definition just because your brain worms are acting up.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Friday January 20 2017, @04:38AM
Bambridge scholars, as Rachel Weiss puts it, in her role in "The Mummy"?
Sure can. Because it's the Oxford Dictionary definition of capitalism.
Why, you pathetic colonial, stuck in the nether (excretionary?) regions of the Rocky Mountains, would you accept a British Imperialist dictionary as your authority? Do you have "royalty" issues"? Those of us (not me) who might be "Americans", would no doubt prefer the Webster's definition. Or perhaps, the original auf Deutsch? Oh, Americans. There is only one language, and one economic system, and one President, and one source of equality (Sam Colt), and one arbiter of the meanings of words: khallow. Oxford is Brit, and they cannot even manage to be enough of a country to stay in the European Union. Reminds me of Texas. Hey, khallow, you got a Texan dictionary handy? What does it say capitalism is?
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by khallow on Friday January 20 2017, @12:42PM
Why, you pathetic colonial, stuck in the nether (excretionary?) regions of the Rocky Mountains, would you accept a British Imperialist dictionary as your authority?
Why ask a question that isn't worth answering? You have a brain, you don't need me to provide you with obvious answers. And if your ideas are worth anything, they will retain that worth when shifted into a semantics system/ontology that people other than yourself actually use.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @02:54PM
Let's rub a little salt in the tender anus, alright?
http://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Texas-to-observe-Confederate-Heroes-Day-6767626.php [expressnews.com]
Confederate Heroes' Day commemorates those who died fighting for the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. An official state holiday in Texas, Confederate Heroes' Day has fallen annually on January 19—the birthday of Robert E. Lee—since its approval on January 30, 1931.
Confederate Heroes' Day: Texas - Infoplease
www.infoplease.com/us/states/confederate-heroes-day-texas.html
https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/us/confederate-memorial-day [timeanddate.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20 2017, @06:07AM
Why is it, and I am just asking, that all Confederate celebrators and re-enactores, are so gay? Why would they associate "butthurt", who both is an esteemed Soylentil and a euphemism for a "spanking", with anal sex? Unless, they really wanted to hear another man "squeal like a pig". This, of course, raises the further question, "How do they know what a pig squeals like, when it is being . . . " [Decency limit reached. For more information, either view the movie "Deliverance", or ask Runaway1956 about animal husbandry. In Arkansas, they know about these things.] So, today, January 19, I have symbolically fucked Robert E. Lee in the ass. And, he liked it.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Thursday January 19 2017, @02:11AM
Ok, show me a monopoly that doesn't have the government mixed up in it. Yes private entities do achieve monopoly status, but the government is almost always mixed up. Railroads? Government grants of eminent domain to only ONE company gives a monopoly on all transport between the nodes of the rail line. Other modes of transit were hopelessly impractical compared to the cost of shipping by rail. Occasionally a town would end up serviced by two railroads and one would buy up the other, again with government approval since they permitted the monopoly they granted to be bought out. Banks are basically indistinguishable from the government; only question is does the government run the banks or is it the other way around? Is there a distinction worth arguing about? Microsoft? Artificial scarcity created by government grant of monopoly plus more government in creating a legal environment that essentially forbids creating clones.
Counter examples? The closest I can think of is Apple, but they are down to way under 50% in the U.S. and more like 10% worldwide and falling. They are a cult, people in it will buy their stuff regardless, no government force or meddling needed. But monopoly they ain't, their brief near total market share was fixed by the marketplace.
(Score: 2) by dry on Thursday January 19 2017, @04:34AM
The reason that the government is always involved in monopolies is that Capitalism rewards the most efficient and it is more efficient to form/manipulate/bribe/employ a government to enforce your monopoly.
Using the railroad example. Businessman sees this new thing called a railroad and wants a monopoly in it as then he can make maximum profits for minimal work. Best way to do this is to get the government on his side, then the government can give him the land, including using imminent domain, the government can make it hard or impossible for competitors to get anywhere and all the other things that government does to support the monopoly.
The governments powers exist to help the monopolist and capitalism is always going to lead to tyranny as it is in the interest of the capitalist to have a tyrannical government enforcing his monopoly. Remove the governments powers and they'll come right back as the powerful want a strong government to protect their interests.
Funny enough, capitalism will also lead to a certain amount of socialism, as getting society to pay for stuff is also more efficient. Look at the case of the fire insurance industry. They quickly discovered it was way more efficient to have society to pay for fire departments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20 2017, @06:33AM
But that's not capitalism! Forcing someone to allocate capital in a certain way (e.g., enforcing a monopoly) is in contravention of the primary principle of capitalism: Voluntary trade.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday January 20 2017, @07:15AM
Sure, because everyone who has a shitty job does that job voluntarily. Right.
The need to eat in order to live, the need to have some place to live in, and a few other needs are not negotiable; they simply exist. You cannot voluntarily decide to evade the laws of nature. Therefore the whole idea that there can be a real world economy where everything is done voluntarily is an illusion. Yes, on paper it may be voluntarily. In reality, it isn't.
You know what the closest to pure capitalism in the Western world is? The Mafia!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday January 21 2017, @02:13AM
Capitalism is about using your capital to leverage acquiring more capital, and sometimes using the capital to acquire other forms of power, including political power.
(Score: 1) by charon on Thursday January 19 2017, @06:36AM
You're soooooo close, jmorris. So close it hurts. The only piece you're missing is why the government is mixed into these monopolies. Why did the government sell railroad right of ways to only one company? Why did the government mandate use of Microsoft Windows on their computers (and everyone else's by way of compatibility)? Why did the government allow Bell to shut customers out from using competing hardware? Why were the banks allowed to play three card monte with the world economy?
The answer is money. Either through campaign contributions, lobbying, revolving door jobs, or regulatory capture, companies that want to keep competitors out of their playpen pay off the people who make the regulations. Your argument is not against regulation, it is against corruption.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @12:59PM
You're soooooo close, jmorris. So close it hurts. The only piece you're missing is why the government is mixed into these monopolies. Why did the government sell railroad right of ways to only one company? Why did the government mandate use of Microsoft Windows on their computers (and everyone else's by way of compatibility)? Why did the government allow Bell to shut customers out from using competing hardware? Why were the banks allowed to play three card monte with the world economy?
The answer is money. Either through campaign contributions, lobbying, revolving door jobs, or regulatory capture, companies that want to keep competitors out of their playpen pay off the people who make the regulations. Your argument is not against regulation, it is against corruption.
Erm, I don't think it primary has to do with money, although it is plausible that some buttering also takes place. Most often it is combination of simplicity through delegation, or mere blindness and enchantment with novelty. Granting a monopoly simplifies regulation and loads burden of learning about the nature of new phenomenons off legislators' shoulders. It is similar to feudalism or Mandarin system - give some of your problems to someone else and let that someone reap the rewards as long as you get your share. Monopolies break usually only when a challenger contestant appears on the horizon, after masses get disgruntled with exploitation and restrictions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @07:15PM
But, your thinking makes no sense... If people are being imposed upon (i.e., they are suffering externalities), then it is in the self-interest of those people to push back, and thereby protect themselves; it is in this struggle where there is born the solution that works for everyone, at least in the long run!
You completely neglect that side.
This is evolution by variation and selection, and the most robust implementation of this process is a free market. The key is to make sure that, as much as possible, the interaction is based on voluntary association (e.g., voluntary trade), and this sort of interaction is only really possible when there is as much competition as possible (including in the "Justice" industry), for it is through such competition that society as a whole cooperates to find workable (if not the best) solutions to problems of which people aren't even aware.
Also, The Short Term often funds the Long Term [soylentnews.org]; if it weren't for the "abuse" of fossil fuels, then perhaps civilization will have never progressed enough to develop the cold fusion that will deliver humanity safely and healthfully to the end of time.
(Score: 1) by NewNic on Wednesday January 18 2017, @08:09PM
You show a complete lack of imagination.
A manufactures and sells a product to B. However, the manufacturing process harms C. Without the influence of government, C has no leverage to push back and protect him/herself. You completely neglect that side.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @10:09PM
They'll band together with the 50 other people in their town to fight back! Annnd they get slaughtered by 200+ trained soldiers with superior firepower. Or hell, 5 people running a single tank. Its amazing that the AC can't wrap their mind around this simple fact which has been historically documented for thousands of years....
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday January 19 2017, @03:14AM
You show a complete lack of imagination.
Really? I thought s/he was quite imaginative, especially with this:
But, your thinking makes no sense...
Do you see that? Right there! Imagining that jmorris is actually thinking! That is some serious, and strong, imagination. Almost too much imagination.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 19 2017, @06:02AM
But, your thinking makes no sense... If people are being imposed upon (i.e., they are suffering externalities), then it is in the self-interest of those people to push back, and thereby protect themselves; it is in this struggle where there is born the solution that works for everyone, at least in the long run!
Sorry, that is profoundly stupid. The problem of externalities is one of the reasons I'm not purely libertarian. There are a variety of problems you are completely blowing off.
For example, externalities can be incurred due to the fault of the people suffering from the externality ("coming to the nuisance" [ucsc.edu]). If I build my house next to the asphalt factory, then I incur the same externality as if the asphalt factory moved next to me. Yet the fault here lies in who creates the situation rather than who is generating the externality. Assembling a posse (which is your blanket proposal for either situation) to deal with the asphalt factory doesn't make my side right.
Another is that it requires effective positive action from the parties that are subject to the externality. If they don't have that power, then it's tough luck. If they aren't alive to exercise that power, then it's even tougher luck. The consequences to externalities need to be baked into the system from the start rather than expected to spontaneously evolve after the fact.
Libertarianism also has the problem that there is a considerable portion of humanity which not only doesn't get libertarianism, but are so fundamentally miswired or incompetent that I don't think anything can do more than shift that ignorance a little. Ultimately, I think libertarianism will be for most societies, stuck in a reactionary mode, resisting a flood of bad ideas and ill-conceived top-down controls.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Wednesday January 18 2017, @09:42PM
No, the free market doesn't solve all problems. Toxic waste for example. Companies DID just dump it wherever, KNOWING it was toxic and that the local population would get sick and/or die. Then, if the local population does figure out what the cause of their illness is, and where it came from, then the companies would first lie about doing it, then lie about knowing it was bad, then just drag out the lawsuit until the local residents were out of money. And that's just now. In the good ole days, the companies would hire people to assault and/or kill anyone who complained, let alone tried to sue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:30PM
The acceptance rate at The Jewish Theological Seminary is 60%. For every 100 applicants, 60 are admitted. [prepscholar.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday January 18 2017, @04:40PM
An interesting view.
I'll change "assets" to "financial interests".
People who profit from things that cause climate change don't want to change it. It affects their financial interests. Short term profit. I need a new sports car that matches my new shoes.
People who are harmed by climate change do want to change it. It affects their financial interests. My house will sink. The oceans will rise. Extinctions, etc.
The problem is that actually everyone is harmed. Or their children. The first person above will be harmed too. Or their children. They are just putting their short term interests first.
Another problem is not only the number of people harmed (everyone), but the scale of the harm. Extinctions of species. Increased extreme weather problems. Inability to grow enough food to feed everyone. Inability to provide enough clean water for everyone. Other problems. Maybe the planet becoming uninhabitable, but not in our lifetime.
I don't think people get smart pretty quick. They just look after their own short term interest over much larger interests -- which is actually pretty dumb, IMO.
You could construct a puzzle scenario where if you all work on short term self interest, you all lose, but if you work together on a larger problem, you all win. But people fail to see it when it is real life and the consequences might be too big to want to face.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:04PM
There are also moral and ethical chronological problems.
So obviously you shoot someone today they can't consume resources tomorrow and in a hundred years instead of 100 starving people there are only 90 starving people, aka kill one today to save ten in a century.
So under that doctrine (which may or may not be true, of course) is someone like Pol Pot a hero or villain?
How many lives in 50 years are equivalent to 1 life today?
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:15PM
This is a very real question btw. Folks working in nuclear decommissioning (Geological Disposal Facility aka GDF) have to decide cost vs benefit on timescales of 1e6 years. So do they spend an extra $100 M today to save the life of some idiot in 100,000 years who digs into the vault holding lots of radiocative waste? Do they risk the lives of the folks who are going to build the GDF for the sake of said idiot (any construction project on the scale of GDF will kill a few construction workers).
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:08PM
Maybe with the wealth generated by pursuing short-term interests, and the ensuing heated debate over the long term, it will ultimately be far easier to build long-term solutions later on... you know... when it's clear to everyone that there is now a problem in the short term.
It would have been stupid to start a Moon-landing program in the 1500s; hell, maybe it was stupid to do so in the 1960s—which is why we've never been back for a long time. Now, extrapolate this analogy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:56PM
Maybe with the wealth generated by pursuing short-term interests, and the ensuing heated debate over the long term, it will ultimately be far easier to build long-term solutions later on... you know... when it's clear to everyone that there is now a problem in the short term.
For instance, it would have been stupid to start a Moon-landing program in the 1500s; hell, maybe it was stupid to do so in the 1960s—which is why we've never been back for a long time. Now, extrapolate this analogy.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 18 2017, @07:14PM
What if the solution to a long term problem is not begun until it is too late? By the time it is clear to everyone that their short term interest is impacted, it may indeed be too late.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @07:25PM
Right now, you're being forced to pay for subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, and to the Military–Industrial Complex, etc. Yet, you and your ilk see that this is a bad bet; wouldn't it be nice to spend those resources of yours instead on alternative modes of existence so that you and yours at least have a chance to escape the calamity to which all the other fools are blind?!
There is nothing but self-interest, and there is nothing but the allocation of resources. You should be able to allocate the resources under your control in exactly the way you see fit, so that you can protect yourself from the bad bets about the future that others are trying to make.
Government is not your friend, precisely because it tries to tell you what your interests are, and then force you to bet on them, even against your own will. Resist.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 18 2017, @08:12PM
Yep.
I don't like subsidies to the fossil fuel industry.
The military industrial complex is another matter. We must have defense. But it's gotten so that having more and unnecessary wars drives increased spending. And yet there is no currently declared war. It's peacetime!
Not sure what you mean by "your ilk". In any event, personal insults don't really persuade.
I agree that I would like to spend resources on alternate modes of existence. Of course, those modes have to become affordable. Increasingly they are. Such as getting your own solar panels. I'm happy to see that happening.
I agree government is not my friend, and forces me to bet against my own interests. Yep.
What I would like to see is government embrace policies that solve problems like climate change. Policies that encourage the development of more green energy. The problem is corruption and lobbyists. Those are the ones driving the denial of science. Teach the controversy, even when there is no actual controversy. They first have to manufacture the controversy.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20 2017, @06:17AM
And therein lies the paving stones for the road to hell.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:46PM
But capitalism tends to fail when your own stupidity or laziness affects your neighbors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @05:12AM
Bullshit. Capitalism does not and has never accounted for long-term goals. Anything beyond the next fiscal quarter is a distant second concern and anything with a payout longer than 5 years would be laughed out of the board room. Capitalism permits taking the ideas of the best of humanity and giving them to short-sighted morons who only care about "winning" at life regardless of the consequences for their future selves and descendants.
It's too easy to fuck things up when you're wasting the resources of someone else.
And it's even easier to fuck up the world for everyone when you are rich enough to buy favors from politicians.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 20 2017, @06:25AM
Favors from politicians? Sounds like the problem is, as always, government; what more can you expect from an organizations that declares its income through violent imposition?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday January 18 2017, @04:19PM
Try a progressive cathedral interpretation on as a thought experiment. It fits a lot better.
The overall problem in your post or maybe in the linked article is people are either ignoring or actively hecking the progressive version of a fire and brimstone speech. "You unclean sinners will all go to the hell of global warming unless you embrace pedo-marriage and gun control and sign treaties that don't do shit blah blah blah while the chosen elect of the righteous ones will preach the glorious truth in the face of opposition" I mean basic human traits like preaching fire and brimstone never go away they just resurface in weird ways, so here we are. The devil is a piece of burning coal, an automobile, a power plant, but he's still the devil and people trying to control you are going to use the devil against you, if you let them.
The most likely outcome of telling a progressive fire and brimstone preacher to F off is, well, nothing. Maybe you'll get demonized as being stupid but they hate the nonbelievers with the fiery passion of an inquisitor already. Maybe you won't get invading immigrants for your local progs to brag about, or as punishment you'll get lots more. About the only thing you're unlikely to get is actual fire and brimstone, or in this case, actual global warming. At least no effects that "really" matter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @04:34PM
Wonderful, the tools immediately come out in force to proclaim their ignorance and paranoid insanity. With climate change you always miss the point, its sad to see brainwashed people who see the flaws of their handlers in the people they lime bash.
(Score: 2) by AndyTheAbsurd on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:29PM
Most people can't understand what "choose a strong password" means even when you put the definition right in front of them and this person wants to give them tools to "better...navigate this science"? It's a nice dream but I can't see the majority of the public ever actually using any tools to understand science.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:37PM
Strong means using four letter words, right? ;-)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:48PM
Which definition of "strong" password? I've seen several and they range from the reasonably easy to remember to the so difficult that all you've done is encouraged people to go back to writing them on stick notes kept by the keyboard.
(Score: 2) by AndyTheAbsurd on Wednesday January 18 2017, @04:28PM
Pick any one you want, as they're all better than "password", "password123", "letmein" and using your spouse's name and/or birthday.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday January 18 2017, @08:53PM
Telling people to never write down their password leads to password re-use.
That way, if the coca-cola website gets compromised, attackers then have access to your e-mail. From there, they have access to your online banking.
If your work area is reasonably secure, writing down passphrases should be no big deal.
Computers are now stupidly powerful. You are unlikely to remember more than a handful of cryptographically strong password that can survive an off-line attack (when some random website like a dating website get compromised.
I am sure a password database can help, but that requires me to trust my backups. (I am not there yet).
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 18 2017, @04:49PM
The problem of choosing a strong password has replaced the immensely complex problem of how to set a blinking VCR clock.
One it becomes no longer necessary to use passwords, the public will apply their collective ignorance to something else.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:20PM
For a technological society, science and a basic understanding of it are essential. The way to accomplish this is simple: education. This is simple stuff that should be taught in grade school.
The problem, in America at least, is that our education systems are a complete disaster, plus most of our population is extremely religious, which is inherently anti-rational. Even worse, as I write this, Congress is in the process of confirming an education secretary who believes that government-run public education can't be done right and wants to funnel education for public schools into religious schools.
From TFS: What's overlooked by many is how science is losing its relevance as a source of truth. To reclaim this relevance, scientists, communicators, institutions and funders must work to change the way that socially relevant science is presented to the public.
This simply isn't going to happen. We're rapidly going the opposite direction. The American public is outright anti-science, and getting more so by the minute. This can easily be seen on online forums, including this one (see the post by jmorris).
The simple truth is that this is a lost cause. We need to stop worrying about mitigating climate change, educating the public, or anything of the sort. Instead, we should concentrate on preparing for economic and climatic disaster.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:53PM
It is how they are educated. Educational models that exist and are enforced by generations of bureaucratic practice and teacher's unions that don't want to change, because change is hard, were developed to train effective factory workers that can show up on time, read & write basic instructions, and do rudimentary sums. A further overlay of practices like blind obedience to rules, saying the pledge of allegiance, etc. reinforce the lessons that Someone Else Is In Charge, Someone Else Knows Better, and You Must Always Obey Orders.
All of those are direct impediments to the sort of thinking that advances science, or that would interest students in the field to begin with.
Unfortunately there's a secondary level of impediment even within the pedagogy of science, should you happen to wind up there. They teach it like they teach recipes in Home Ec: "Here are your inputs, follow these steps, done!" There's no questioning of the reasoning or the experimental design, of the context of the phenomenon or the historical way in which the law or phenomenon in question came to be understood. In short, there's no practice to it.
If you're really lucky, perhaps, you wind up in a PhD program at the right university, working with the right professor, who finally gives you space to do some of that. But then the tertiary level of impediment kicks in, with said professor stealing your work and walking off with all the grant money and patents.
When that's the reality (and we've discussed it here and long ago on Slashdot many times), how is it surprising that modern Americans are alienated from science when it ought to be the god-given right and practice of every human being to undertake directed, purposeful inquiry into how things work?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:31PM
And yet despite all that, research does happen. New technologies do happen. People can feel inspired and excited by the prospect of travelling to Mars, of finding new forms of matter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @01:11AM
> Instead, we should concentrate on preparing for economic and climatic disaster.
I've already prepared, starting in my college years in the late 1970s when it seemed like I first started doing some of my own thinking. First move was to not have kids. There were several reasons and one of them was not wanting to bring new life into a world that was, on balance, going to get worse... I've enjoyed my friends kids and wish them all the best, but it's not looking great for the future of humanity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @01:40AM
So you're 40 years into this "imminent" collapse of society, huh? And in another 40, if you're still around, you'll still be waiting for it to happen any day now because the current times are ALWAYS the worst times in history.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:32PM
The author's main example was changes in dietary beliefs, where the real thing thats changing is the heavily advertised and propagandized beliefs used to be strictly funded by megacorps/agribusiness and only recently has anything actually scientific accidentally resulted from the open internet etc.
Its like economics where you get funding from someone with a political axe to grind then the retcon to create some believable PR begins, and oddly enough the research shows the conclusion that was predetermined and paid for.
The story also can't seem to decide if "truth" means scientific truth or progressive talking points.
This is not about manipulating or persuading the public to accept decisions
Well, what is a journalist or PR person hired to do then? I mean that's exactly what they're paid to do so ... Almost 100% of journalists are basically freelance PR hacks from the DNC as they admit themselves.
If not communicated carefully, the idea that scientists sometimes 'don't know' can open the door to those who want to contest evidence.
Oh noes! Wait I'm not seeing a problem there. Is your goal truthier truth or stronger censorship against badthink?
socially relevant science
aka propaganda / PR. Just because the TV commercial has the authoritative looking guy in a lab coat doesn't mean any of its true.
Closer links between educators, communicators and scientists can also strengthen how socially relevant science is represented in articles and curricula
Tighten cathedral control to eliminate badthink about progressive talking points. The one true fire and brimstone sermon not the truth.
For example, science academies could offer more grants to support more-sophisticated journalism.
See I'm not just reflexively disagreeing with everything the article states. We have websites like astrobites, that just needs more coverage or more oompf to get more eyeballs. Of course its the current year, maybe everyone who cares already reads astrobites, much like everyone who gives a F about american football pretty much gets their fill of coverage. We don't need a gatekeeper or travel guide we have google.
shows that science matters
An open minded heretical thought experiment is what if it doesn't, not to everyone? I mean sports matter, but not to everyone. Politics matter, not to everyone. How about history or literature or classical music or philosophy, they all matter, but not to everyone. Transistor bias circuitry in various amplifier modes matter, but not to everyone. The resonant frequency of surface mount bypass capacitors is important, but not to everyone. I mean most people have little to zero input on the political system so what they think as subjects of the realm really doesn't matter. Some of the hidden wisdom of talking about how many angels dance on the head of a pin is something being interesting or a tolerable debating exercise does not necessarily imply it matters. I know a lot about the glacial geology of where I live and some awesome hiking trails to see it, but none of that matters to everyone or darn near anyone in fact. And thats not a problem.
In this way the article is scattered, jumping around. Do you want better progressive orthodoxy? Or just better PR? Or the actual scientific truth? Does it matter if the savages are educated correctly if they have no power? Or are you working against badthink? Oh wait you just shifted gears from talking about truth to talking about stuff that matters as if they're the same.
As an article, its just... I donno. How can it be so long with so many different unconnected ideas yet say so little? I mean I apologize if OP wrote it, but its just not even freshman college writing material.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @04:02PM
Line-by-line and phrase-by-phrase rebuttals are an amateur way to communicate, and are especially irritating when the blockquotes begin to pile up next to each other. In the future, consider formulating a more self-contained retort.
(Score: 3, Touché) by VLM on Wednesday January 18 2017, @04:08PM
I'd typically agree with you AC but the original article was so scattered.
Agreed you go big game hunting with a rifle with a scope, but against a flock of crazed killer seagulls you need a shotgun with a wide pattern.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday January 18 2017, @04:42PM
It sounds to me like the article is a perfect example of why science journalism needs to be better. It's so bad that even supporters of "science" don't understand the difference between science and academia. Even worse, they still think that the problem with science journalism is that it isn't convincing people enough that the current accepted theories are correct. That problem - and let's face it, this is about climate change - is a purely political problem that will be solved by better political journalism, not better science journalism.
The real problem with public understand of science is that much like the author of this article, most people confuse "science" to mean "the body of scientifically-acquired knowledge". Those are two very different things, and the reason that nobody understands what "science" is is that nobody teaches philosophy anymore. The best thing we can do to resolve this problem is to watch and share more of those popular philosophy videos on YouTube.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NewNic on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:44PM
I agree. From TFA:
I would argue that it is the misrepresentation of science by journalists that is the root cause of the problem.
Journalists misrepresent science in multiple ways, which include: suggesting that a theory is more accepted within the scientific community than it really is, accepting the results of studies by interested parties (for example, studies that are sponsored by large companies or industries), promoting information from non-scientists (for example "nutrition" advice that is unsupported by any experimental results) and finally, the old "balanced reporting", where the other side are a bunch of kooks (or crooks).
But the author, as a journalist, doesn't want to look in a mirror.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @04:53PM
VLM you're the only one to bring in the idea of badthink and thought control. After reading the short article I don't get any sense of trying to control what people think at all. All I see is a probing oped article about how to enhance the journalistic impact of real science. We can't just sit back and let ignorance and lies roam unchecked, and figuring out better ways to write and publish science news is a very long way from this cabal of elite progressives coming to take your guns.
Stop fighting people who have similar goals, at least wait until they actually do something evil before you tear them down.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:00PM
Reality always matters, always operates regardless of belief or disbelief in it, Just because an animal doesn't need to understand it at a conscious level doesn't mean that it doesn't matter. Animals don't need to understand sex, they only need instinctive behavior to perpetuate. We like to think we're better than the rest of the animals. Obviously it is intelligence that sets us apart. If we turn our backs on that, we deserve whatever reality does to us. Matthew 4:7. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
Thanks to our intelligence, which some call a gift from God (or Prometheus?), we've discerned we have a situation that we call Climate Change, and that it is a problem. We have free will to ignore this problem, just as we have free will to walk off a cliff. We can play chicken, see how close to the edge of the cliff we can dance. However, having perceived the problem thanks to our intelligence, it's the height of folly to ignore it. If God made us smart, why did He do so? Perhaps for problems like this? We have a good idea what happened to the dinosaurs, and perhaps now the means to prevent that from happening to us. Shouldn't we? It's like the joke about the good Christian who was caught in a flood, turned down three rescue offers from a boat, expressing faith that God would save him. He drowned, and in heaven asked why God didn't save him, and God tells him that what we have here is a communication problem, He sent that boat 3 times....
There are problems with the practice and communication of science. Just as many secularists too often reduce religion to a caricature of itself in which only the stupidest adherents with the craziest, most dramatic, hateful talk get held up as an example, so also many of the religious get too dismissive of science, cling hard to trivial mistakes to justify jettisoning the whole thing.
> what is a journalist or PR person hired to do then?
Journalists sell news. Get attention, which can then be used to deliver advertising. Reporting facts is only a means, it isn't their ultimate goal. Which means they can't be trusted to tell it straight, and they aren't above overdramatizing it, like Brian Williams did. They will stir up a fight if they can, as that sells more news. Journalists at least care a little about the facts, but PR hacks are darker, don't care about facts at all. They care only about what people believe and can be manipulated into believing.
An excellent example is the movie Apollo 13. Full of science, based on a true story about scientific endeavor, yet hammed up to make it more dramatic. The director was completely unapologetic about that, saying essentially that's entertainment and the people who are really interested in all the important facts without embellishment should watch a documentary, not a movie.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:12PM
people who are really interested in all the important facts without embellishment should watch a documentary
Ah if only. There's real documentaries like the BBC World at War series and then there's modern infotainment filler drama. I really do think the BBC WaW series increased my IQ by a point or two, whereas this Ken Burns "The West" documentary I binge watched a couple weeks ago could have been replaced by a very short wikipedia article. Its like taking 12 hours to read a short story almost painful slow pacing. Eh it was the holidays I rarely drink but I had plenty of cider in me for that. Well this episode was crap but "Ken Burns" so I'm sure I'll love the next episode. Not so much. Oh well. They're all like that now. NOVA is crap. In the 80s I don't remember NOVA being crap. It was crap by the 90s when I stopped watching. I'll probably stop watching NOVA again, soon.
Its not that the highs are too low, its that they're taking a three paragraph wikipedia article and a 15 second youtube clip both of which are excellent and forcing you to sit thru an hour of filler to see those good parts.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:37PM
> They're all like that now. NOVA is crap
TV is an awful medium to transfer information. Read a book.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday January 18 2017, @11:04PM
Watch NOVA for the pretty pictures. I remember Treasures of the Earth: Gems being pretty good.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nova_episodes#Season_44:_2016.E2.80.93present [wikipedia.org]
(these are upcoming episodes)
"Search for the Super Battery" - Given how many battery tech articles we sit through, sounds terrible.
"Secrets of Origami" - I assume DNA origami is on the agenda. There's a lot of research to keep up with in this area, so it might be interesting.
"Death Dive to Saturn" - Cassini's mission has done hundreds of flybys of its science targets, plopped a lander on Titan, and accomplished a lot over its lifespan. Although you could just read the Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org], this episode will probably be worth watching. However it should be noted that this airs several months before the actual "death dive"...
"Secrets of the Shining Knights (working title)" - You'll get to see them play blacksmith.
"Flint (working title)" - I assume this will feature interviews of many of the key players, like LeeAnne Walters [motherjones.com]. Probably similar to a Frontline episode, except with more water science and less focus on the corrupt officials.
There's only one episode I need NOVA to make, and that's the Planet Nine [wikipedia.org] one. And I doubt they will make it before the thing is at least directly imaged by the James Webb Space Telescope. If we do find it, it could be decades before we can get a probe there to find all of its moons.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:11PM
Wait I'm not seeing a problem there. Is your goal truthier truth or stronger censorship against badthink?
The problem is that uncertainty is seen as weakness. Guess which of these statements is more effective at convincing normal people:
Vaccines cause autism!
There have been no reputable scientific evidence to suggest that vaccines cause autism.
Trying to inform people makes things worse. Debating against these types of people gives them legitimacy.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/02/25/peds.2013-2365 [aappublications.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:34PM
Surprisingly how dimwitted and stupid most americans are today and that is evident by the impending coronation of donald duck for our leader.
Fucking pathetic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @03:40PM
It's part of our long game. You will be bending over backwards to please Americans before long.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 18 2017, @04:44PM
We Americans might find ourselves isolated from the other 96% of the world's population.
But the ignorant masses won't be persuaded by dem ignert heathen nations.
Every performance optimization is a grate wait lifted from my shoulders.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:52PM
I STILL cannot believe so many people selected that guy. He is unprofessional in so many different ways. Maybe if we had strong evidence was a super-mega-great deal maker (we don't, funded & bailed out by daddy too many times), does that benefit offset his MANY personality quirks?
What's the Trump Math that went on in their heads? I-dont-gettit
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday January 18 2017, @10:51PM
What's the Trump Math that went on in their heads? I-dont-gettit
People are angry, but have not really thought that much about what it is they are angry about. Trump comes across as more right-authoritarian, promising solutions to the issues propagandized as being important, promising to shake up the establishment, promising to "Make America Great", so the voters chose to believe him without examining exactly what he has said or done in the past, or even worse, the greater implications of what he is saying he will do now.
(Score: 2) by lgw on Thursday January 19 2017, @12:53AM
They knew exactly what they were angry about: politicians and journalists talking down to them. They knew exactly what they were voting for: someone who would be the biggest asshole possible to those guys. He's delivering well thus far.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday January 18 2017, @08:05PM
So you are trying to imply that previously, back in the good old days, people read scientific reports all the time? Sure ... Dream on. People don't read them cause they don't understand them, they are not easy to get or find and most of them are utterly boring for anyone that isn't in the field. There wasn't some time in history when people sat around reading scientific reports cause they are so funny and good to read.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by TheSouthernDandy on Wednesday January 18 2017, @04:50PM
All just opinion, but here goes anyway. TFA makes the same mistake so many others do, beginning with the thesis that the public wants to know the unbiased truth. It doesn't. People largely begin with a thesis (e.g., climate change is a hoax), then look for and gather evidence that supports their thesis. Hell, even scientists operate this way, with the difference that we have to throw away hypotheses that test false. Not every scientist does, demonstrating the human failing of attachment to "our" ideas. (And sometimes tests aren't perfect classifiers, so some attachment is a good thing). Now, we have public "debate" where one side relies on arguments bordering on the absurd, latching onto a tiny bit of scientific uncertainty and blowing it out of all proportion ("who cares about all the other data, sea ice extent in Antarctica is increasing! Climate change is a hoax! No alternative explanation of the other data required!"). Changing communication methods will not change anything. The whole nihilistic concept of "post-truth" is that there is no rational argument to reach the public any more. I see this as far more a resignation of the public toward the difficult process of establishing truth and a cultural emphasis on titillation over philosophia than any problem with science per se.
All empires eventually fall. Maybe this is our (the U.S. or "Western" view of civilization, depending on how far the rot gets) time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:04PM
The end of empire for the US seems clear, once we break free from oil there won't be much left to retain control except straight violent warfare. The world is undoubtedly sick of our shit, and its no more evident than when the citizens themselves say they've had enough...
You make good points, but I do think the article brings up a good point. Scientific journalism has always been laughed at, so figuring out ways to improve the journalism side will help. If we just throw up our hands and let bullshit news run free without good counterpoints then we're complicit in the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 19 2017, @01:33PM
The end of empire for the US seems clear, once we break free from oil there won't be much left to retain control except straight violent warfare.
Not necessarily. US has much more soft power than military power, even though its military power is uncontested by any other nation state in the world.
The world is undoubtedly sick of our shit, and its no more evident than when the citizens themselves say they've had enough...
Unfortunately, the soft power is not soft enough, or not used as such enough, because in last several decades you pumped up the zeal through the roof and started "hardening" your soft power, turning it in nothing more than ideological pretext for usage of hard power, both internally (hence the Trump) and internationally. The problem is that when pursuing some good ideas for betterment of society, you must not indiscriminately persecute and dehumanize dissenters, ... well, at least not without rounding them up and stripping them of their voting rights ... (just kidding).
(Score: 2, Troll) by jmorris on Wednesday January 18 2017, @04:58PM
I love this article. The denial is so strong I really could have stopped with the Solyent summary or the first paragraph of the article but I read the whole thing because the #salty was so tasty. It probably won't be as much fun when you Progs make it from denial to anger, at least not unless you can focus that anger inward on your utter failure and just kill yourselves. Please! Do it!
This article had it all though, it was obviously the right blog post to elevate to Nature as the encapsulation of the Narrative to ensure all Progs are synced to the Current Truth.
The laugh out lines:
But of the two industries I work in that are concerned with truth — science and journalism — only the latter has seriously engaged and looked for answers.
That one took a bit to recover from, but I had to soldier on and risk overdosing. We begin with an abiding belief in the supernatural, that Journalism exists... somewhere and that it gives half a f*ck about Truth. Please. We all lived through 2016, if there is anyone who still believes that they are brain damaged or just woke up from a coma... which means they WERE brain damaged. The mainstream media (Nature included) all appear in the DNC org chart, the others have differing agendas. If you want Truth try the philosophy dept at one of the few remaining old school liberal arts universities.
scientists seem to see themselves as victims of, rather than active players in, the new political scene.
Translation from the NewSpeak: Their side lost. Meaning they are politicians first, and VERY active in the OLD political scene. Anyone with enough brains to be a scientist has a political opinion, most have poorly thought out ones though. But it doesn't matter unless you were mixing your politics and science, which almost all do now. They were trying to transfer the imprimatur of Science to the politcal agenda of The Party. They failed and now both their political party AND science suffer from their failure. Example is the very next sentence of the article which gets to the Progs's woobie, AGW, and the fears of the recent loss on that project.
Next we get plenty of reassurance that the only problem is communication failure. The Faithful must never question the Holy Writ of Science, for it is always and forever Settled. Unless it Changes, then all must instantly change and memory hole any evidence there was a different Truth. Science certainly never changes because The Party loses an election! So fear not troops, you did nothing wrong, you only need additional funding for training in how to better communicate.
People expect science to offer authoritative conclusions that correspond to the deterministic model. When there's incomplete information, imperfect knowledge or changing advice — all part and parcel of science — its authority seems to be undermined.
Translation: In keeping with the cornerstone of The Party, all Science is Equal. If a Science is not equal we shall engage in Affirmative Action to make it Equal and it shall be forbidden to admit that we are elevating the less complete conclusions to the status of Truth. All must be Equal, all must serve the needs of The Party. This is important because many of the most "socially relevant science" policy recommendations of Science / The Party come from these less developed fields.
Here we see the heart of the failure in mixing Science and Politics. Science can, with great difficulty and on a very intermittent schedule, tell us what the Universe -IS-. With our current level of understanding though, Science is ill equipped to speak to the policy implications, to be "socially relevant."
Finally she gets to the meat of her proposal. To restore public confidence in the infallibility of Science... wait for it... we must have closer collusion between Big Science, Big Education and Big Media sweetened with some Big Funding from somewhere unspecified because I suspect Big Government won't be playing along for the next couple of years. In other words, "Once more, with feeling!"
Guys! You tried controlling all the levers of information and achieved great (unholy but great) things. But you lost the monopoly. And with it you lost the ability to declare anything to be The Truth, you can't declare up is down, that black is white anymore. It is gone. It ain't coming back. New plan time. But better to admit your tired faith is as dead as Soviet Communism, chug a quart of vodka for courage and KILL YOURSELF!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:15PM
When you start out from a "rock solid" foundation it is easy to see the bias. Jmo you started off with the preconception of liberal ivory tower elitism and thus read into everything like a true conspiracy nut. You don't care about what the author is trying to say, only how it fits into the pieces of your pet theory. The problem is that you and your fellow crazies actively destroy attempts at communicating science. For all the talk about agendas and echo chambers you sure do a good job at trying to derail anything that doesn't fit your worldview. I almost never see rational debate from your posts, just rambling about the evils of progressives.
Trump winning sure lifted the veil on the divide which has been lurking for a long time. I'll just sit back and watch you crazies do mental backflips to try and justify the next 4 years of Big Cock being repeatedly shoved up your ass.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @04:58PM
Science has lost the PR war that has been assembled against it.
The public doesn't value experts and it doesn't believe in objectivity anymore. All opinions are equal and every issue needs to be balanced with the opposing view because facts are debatable and we must teach the controversy.
Being highly educated means you're "elitist", getting paid means you're part of a government conspiracy or a shill for Big Business, and everyone is a partisan hack.
Propaganda beats science. When people try to address vaccine conspiracy theories by providing reputable scientific information, it makes things fucking worse (more hesitant to vaccinate).
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2016/06/30/expertology [sciencemag.org]
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/02/25/peds.2013-2365 [aappublications.org]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:18PM
Yeah, oddly enough the conservatives have taken the PC idea of "all opinions valid" and use it against science. Its brilliant, but also shows their moral deficiencies aka hypocrites.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:16PM
I'm not quite sure I understand what TFA is arguing for. First, science isn't exactly about "finding truth" in some philosophical sense. I'm guessing the author is arguing that scientists need to be better about contextualizing findings and their implications, rather than the media reports of science we often get which tend to be oversimplified if not outright distorted (and sometimes even marshalling facts to support conclusions different from the science that created those "facts").
But what are scientists to do? One possibility suggested in TFA seems to be public education:
if the public is better equipped to navigate this science, it would restore trust and improve understanding of different verdicts, and perhaps help people to see through some of the fake news that circulates on scientific matters. Lifting the lid on these realities about socially relevant science is mostly about changing the content and framing of what's being communicated. And it could be encouraged by targeting various points of contact between science and the public. Public-engagement programmes of research, educational or cultural institutions are an obvious option. Closer links between educators, communicators and scientists can also strengthen how socially relevant science is represented in articles and curricula.
I agree that having more "science outreach" to the public or whatever would be great. And for a long-term plan to educate the public better in science, maybe this can do some good.
But the immediate issue in TFA is quite different -- and alluded to in the passage I bolded above. The "content and framing" of the science isn't done by scientists, for the most part. It's done by a news media which has a business interest in (1) dumbing things down enough so anyone will understand, leading to oversimplifications, (2) sensationalizing findings to sell papers or clicks -- especially headlines, and given recent findings about the frequency of "fake news" spread around social media, it's pretty clear that large numbers of people don't even bother to read beyond a headline or a first sentence of an article, and (3) telling a story in a way that's entertaining primarily -- being informative is pretty clearly in second place, and displaying nuance is pretty much unheard of in most media reports.
Anyhow, as long as the public is primarily getting "scientific findings" through such sources filtered through a business/entertainment model, obviously they're not going to appreciate scientific nuance, nor will they want to even know about it -- start throwing in too many qualifiers and statistics and people's eyes will glaze over. Part of this is because they don't understand why they need to know about such nuances, but part of it is also that they aren't GIVEN such nuances on a regular basis, because the media likes to feed everyone a "light diet" of celeb gossip and sports, with a sprinkling of "Did you know X food could cause heart disease?"
I'm not sure what scientists are supposed to do about this exactly. The media blitz often begins even within universities themselves, as university press offices play up recent findings from the faculty that already tend to exaggerate things. Once it trickles into mainstream news media, all nuance is lost.
What does TFA recommend?
Scientists can influence what's being presented by articulating how this kind of science works when they talk to journalists, or when they advise on policy and communication projects. It's difficult to do, because it challenges the position of science as a singular guide to decision making, and because it involves owning up to not having all of the answers all the time while still maintaining a sense of authority.
Scientists already do this. Read discussion sections of actual scientific studies. They often have lots of hedging about how far the data really goes, whether it can actually be conclusive, what further work needs to be done to clarify the findings, etc. Scientists are often (though not always) VERY straightforward about a lot of this stuff. And my guess is that most scientists also TRY to convey such nuance to the media if interviewed: "preliminary findings," "more work needed to confirm," etc.
The problem is -- what quotations will the reporters use? Will they print a three-paragraph quote from a scientist clarifying all the nuances? Seriously doubtful. Instead, you'll get the more exciting quote: "This might be the beginning of a revolution in understanding of X" or whatever. And if they can't get a more definitive or exciting quote from the scientist who actually ran the study, they'll call up other researchers until they find someone else who gives them such a quote.
And what does it gain the reporter to try to report nuance? Many readers will find it boring if there are too many technical details or unclear if it hedges too much. Thus, it creates "bad journalism," where of course most journalism has a primary goal of entertainment. (That's what makes journalism distinct from reporting research. If you're a scientist reporting research in an article or book, you're trying to get across information. If you're a journalist writing an article, you want to entertain.)
And if the story turns out to be "wrong" after further research, the reporter will almost never be held accountable. After all, the reporter was just telling the story he/she heard and read, and just a single "preliminary finding" or something buried in the article would be enough to get the journalist "off the hook," just as putting "alleged" a few times in a crime story is sufficient to justify ruining someone's reputation in public, even if the person ends up being innocent in the end.
So, there's really no incentive for journalists to improve, and even being more careful or nuanced when talking to them is unlikely to change the general tenor of science journalism. The only way to solve this problem would be something significantly more radical -- like scientists directly communicating with the public (unlikely to work, since the reason we ask journalists to do this is because they are better at holding attention of the public), or scientists publicly denouncing journalistic coverage that isn't nuanced enough (likely just to result in less science reported in the first place). So I don't know how to fix it without having journalists accountable to scientists -- and aside from things like science journals or science magazines, I'm not sure how that's going to happen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @05:33PM
Don't forget that ideally, voters select the president who will govern the best, no the one whose talking points hold up better under scrutiny from entrenched elites. But everyone should decide whether there is a line in the sand beyond which they will become politically active. For me, that line would be a database of Muslims. Nazi policies have no place here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:08PM
(Score: 2) by SecurityGuy on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:40PM
In a prior job I worked on a grant with money from "Big Pharma", who wanted us to determine if a particular protein had therapeutic value in treating cancer. We designed a statistically valid experiment and showed with some level of likelihood (I forget the p value, but it met the "statistically significant" criteria) that it had no effect. There probably would have been more money coming if it worked (larger trial, animal model more like humans, etc, the usual progression to and through clinical trials. But that didn't happen because it didn't actually work.
I really find it sad how people assume everybody's a scammer. I worked with honest people who actually wanted to do something useful. I worked with a guy who lost a sister to cancer as a child, for example. I worked with some post-docs who just had a fascination with learning how things work, and I'm not talking about go read it in a book, I'm talking about literally no one, anywhere knows how it works, so design and run an experiment and find out. We watched a co worker sicken and die from that disease. I hadn't lost anybody to it yet, but I have now, and I'd really like to get back into medical research not for the "Big Pharma" money, but because I'd like to see a world with less suffering and death in it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @07:31PM
Looks like we found another name to add to the list of "reputation management" professionals.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RS3 on Wednesday January 18 2017, @08:03PM
I've skimmed this discussion and at this point, these are the only comments in line with the real problem: money.
Some scientists make a great discovery, but need to keep it under wraps until it's properly protected, patented, licensed out, and of course even then it can be stolen/copied.
Some scientists crave attention, and possible money from fame, endorsements, news, advertising, etc., and embellish or even fake stories.
Some scientists work for someone who owns the rights to their work.
Universities are huge image-conscious money-making machines. Many scientists are university professors who are required to churn out "work" and papers and get grants, corporate investment, etc. "Publish or perish" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publish_or_perish [wikipedia.org]
All of the news media, whoever they are, are part of the money machine of capitalism. Even SN has a money thing upper right side main page!
As sheeple-ish as the general public can be, they're also collectively wise in some ways, including knowing that money is involved in almost everything, and influences almost everything, therefore justified skepticism abounds. Unfortunately, being sheeple, they randomly choose to believe some things and not others, and it can usually be traced to a money root.
Only to dream of a futuristic money-less Star Trek economy...
(Score: 4, Informative) by SecurityGuy on Wednesday January 18 2017, @08:53PM
Never saw that. To the contrary, when there was a publishable result, they wanted to get it published.
I worked for a university, in fact. Yes, they're "required" to get grants, in that it's those grants that generally actually pay most of their salaries. Grants are not freebies. They're a competitive process where you convince someone with money (usually NIH) that you have an idea worth pursuing, and an idea better and more likely to bear useful fruit than everybody else who is competing for that same money. It's actually not at all easy. Publish or perish? Yeah, it's definitely a thing. Universities want people who get stuff done. I can't honestly say I've worked for a company yet who has done performance management well. Universities aren't really different in that regard.
And there ya go. Science is all about justified skepticism. Personally, I *love* justified skepticism. What I don't love is people who don't personally know anything about science deciding (based on nothing) that it's all bunk. Or people who don't know any actual scientists who think they're all scamming society for money. (NB: a lot of science is done by postdocs, who are paid really pretty badly).
There's a line between justified (and reasonable) skepticism that might say "I can see how money could corrupt this process. How can we test for that and prevent it if it's happening?" and the people who declare that because money is involved, it is corrupt.
(Score: 1) by cloud.pt on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:16PM
There is a unsolvable (as of yet), threefold conflict, between the need of research, freedom of the press and generalized freedom of expression. This issue gets further complicated with the action of biased actors, such as political movements in power and corporate interests exerting influence, especially in the press but also in education itself by flooding the academic space with loaded research that only serves to meet their own ends, and is only published when having favorable. This last part here is where freedom of expression pops in: no scientist is actually enforced to speak out about his research. On the contrary, many of them actually have no rights at all because of NDAs made to safeguard the business of their corporate patrons.
As someone deeply personally invested in e-cig/vape research, for my own health and well-being as it's what keeps me away from smoking, every week I see headlines in both academical and mass media outlets against the practice, or social media items with artificially inflated popularity from gruesome pictures totally unrelated to events. At the worst case I have seen a combination of both: mass media reporting of social media loaded, unbiased, statistically irrelevant and most of all, unverified claims of hazard on e-cigs, mixed up with totally event-unrelated anti-vaping publications as a lousy excuse for validity.
One such example is an article in the Daily Mail where an explosion happened due to obvious, yet omited USER ERROR of charging an already bad, overused product with a phone charger with much more current than it should for that device, THEN the article proceeded to bash e-cigs with and article on formaldehyde effects on lungs, a byproduct of vaping that occurs in non-realistic scenarios of vaping (think using a 12v car battery instead of the usual 3.7v battery). The headline was something like "ANOTHER ECIG EXPLOSION, NEW TOXIC MATERIAL RESEARCH". These articles are made to sell papers and to keep selling tobacco. Nothing more.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 18 2017, @06:40PM
Instead of trusting "scientists," the question is will people then trust, "these tools???"
Science is NOT ABOUT TRUST.
It is about providing replicable tests that falsify or do not falsify constructed hypotheses. Replicable, as in, "You can go and repeat our procedures and expect the same results. You do not need to 'trust' us - you can with proper training and education do exactly what we did."
Now journalism.... is ALL ABOUT TRUST. It is about convincing people that what you've represented is an accurately constructed story which represents reality.
Both are necessary, as no person has the ability to master all of "science." And every person must at some level place some degree of trust in something or someone. And anything that represents itself as science had better be testable and have other disinterested parties interested in replication of results.... or it is just storytelling again. But any thinking being ought to know the basics of the scientific method and be able to understand the stories which are being told, and Stephen Colbert aside every person does need to have a sense of "truthiness" and the ability to recognize bullshit walking.
Please, in this forum, let me be speaking to the choir? Please?
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday January 18 2017, @10:43PM
This, unfortunately, is where it falls down. You are right that they ought to know but many neither know nor care. Apart from that, I agree with you.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 1) by ilsa on Thursday January 19 2017, @12:27AM
The article makes it sound as if journalists arn't responsible for the mess that science journalism is in. On the contrary, they are *explicitly* responsible. Journalists don't care about accuracy or validity. They care about eyeballs and ad impressions. So the more provocative they can make something, so much the better.
Are eggs good for you? Are they bad for you? The number of examples are almost endless, because journalists are so quick to publish any old shit, the public (who are already ill equipped to evaluate the information) end up on the receiving end of a never ending stream of unactionable nonsense that very often ends up conflicting with the nonsense from even just a moment ago. We already know what the end result is. No public trust of actual science, and quackery gets front and center attention. People are now dead and/or maimed thanks to the anti-vaxxer movement, which in turn is directly responsible for shitty journalism that breathlessly parroted a shitty study that turned out to be completely fraudulent.
There needs to be laws, or at least very strenuously encourage guidance, regarding scientific reporting. First and foremost, if 'the science' hasn't been peer reviewed and replicated, it shouldn't be reported. Those two requirements would wipe out the overwhelming majority of garbage articles out there. Secondly, does the journalist have any experience with scientific processes, statistical analysis, etc? Then that journalist should be barred from so much as writing a headline, because they by definition don't know how to interpret a research paper and will end up mangling the resulting article in various ways, to the point where they even get the point backwards.
Obviously there are other things that need to be done as well, such as public education, etc. But the idea that journalists are not responsible for the shitty copy they wrote just makes me angry.
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Thursday January 19 2017, @01:21AM
Next question.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 2) by tisI on Thursday January 19 2017, @08:43AM
Who are these "Scientists" we are questioning?
Are we talking about PhD type educated people that do extensive research on mysterious things, to some, and then write papers on their findings, or the fake scientists that work in the back rooms of some perverse news corporations in order to keep ratings high and audiences viewing and entertained?
There is a difference here.
The "Public" need to take care of where they get their information.
Real science does not come from conservative opinion-ators. You will never get facts and truth from paid corporate shills.
Facts are not open to debate. The opinion-ators opinions are.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself."