Almost nobody is "anti-science". The source of that labeling and division came from appeals to authority. You must do or believe this because it's "the science." If you don't, or you disagree, then you are anti-science.
It has nothing to do with science, but rather people not finding that a sufficient justification for unpopular actions. For instance it's 100% certain that banning sugary drinks would dramatically improve public health, reduce healthcare costs, increase life expectancy, and just generally make society better in every single way.
So should we ban sugary drinks? It'd be akin to me trying to claim that if you say no then you're anti-science, anti-health, or whatever else. It's just a dumb, divisive, and meaningless label - exactly the sort politicians love so much now a days.
Of course there's some irony in that it will become a self fulfilling prophecy. The more unpopular things done in the name of 'the science', the more negative public sentiment to 'the science' will become. Probably somewhat similar to how societies gradually became secular over time, as it became quite clear that actions done in the name of God were often not exactly pious.
Yes, there are a lot of people who are anti-science. As in they do not believe the scientific method is a good way to find truth. There are people today who are rejecting very basic science that was accepted over a century ago.
No, there aren't. Most people don't realize when they're being trolled by things like e.g. flat earth types. Go read one of the groups, it's a trolling meme largely turned into something by the internet + media. Thanks to social media even if let's say 0.1% of English speakers believe (or pretend to believe) something, that'd be 1.6 million people, so you can get a false impression, especially when the media takes the trolling and then amplifies it with a straight face largely to amplify these dumb and farcical divides.
I've seen science (the process, not just the results of that process) denounced as an aspect or tool of Western colonialism / imperialism. And there's that related "indigenous ways of knowing" thing that Canada has going on.
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Also the flat earth people actually aren't trying to argue against science (the process). They're arguing that everyone except them made either observational errors or reasoning errors.
Science is a great way to model reality. It’s unclear whether science accurately describes reality. It’s also unclear whether science is capable of determining metaphysical truth.
- 15% of Americans don't believe in Climate Change[0]
- 37% believe God created man in our current form within the last ~10k years
(i.e. don't believe in evolution)[1]
I don't think these are just rounding errors.
They're large enough numbers that you should know multiple people who hold these beliefs unless you're in a strong bubble.
I'm obviously with you in news and pop-sci being terrible. I hate IFuckingLoveScience. They're actually just IFuckingLoveClickbait. My point was literally about this bullshit.
90% of the time it is news and pop-sci miscommunicating papers. Where they clearly didn't bother to talk to authors and likely didn't even read the paper. "Scientists say <something scientists didn't actually say>". You see this from eating chocolate, drinking a glass of red wine, to eating red meat or processed meat. There are nuggets of truth in those things but they're about just as accurate as the grandma that sued McDonalds over coffee that was too hot. You sure bet this stuff creates distrust in science
I think one of the most important 'social values' for science to thrive is a culture with a freedom to disagree on essentially anything. In most of every era where there was rapid scientific progress from the Greeks to the Islamic Golden Age to the Renaissance and beyond, there was also rich, and often times rather virulent, disagreements over even the most sacred of things. Some of those disagreements were well founded, some were... not. It's only in the eras where disagreement becomes taboo that science starts to slow to a crawl and in many cases essentially die.
Disagreeing with some consensus is not "anti-science". The term doesn't even make any sense, which is because it's a political and not a scientific term. I mean imagine if we claimed everybody who happens to believe MOND is more likely than WIMPs as an explanation for dark matter, to be "anti-science". It's just absolutely stupid. Yet we do exactly that on other topics where suddenly you must agree with the consensus or you're just "anti-science"? I mean again, it makes no sense at all.
I don’t think that’s quite right. Disagreement for the sake of disagreement is not particularly meaningful. The basis for science is iteration on the scientific method. Which is to say: observe -> hypothesize -> falsify.
Anti science means to make claims that have no basis in that process or to categorically reject the body of work that was based on that process.
People disagree because they hold a different opinion. In many eras publicly expressing differing opinions, let alone publicly challenging established ones, becomes difficult for various reasons - cultural, political, social, even economic. And I think this is, in general, the natural state of society. When people think something is right, changing their mind is often not realistically possible. And this includes even the greatest of scientists.
For instance none other than Einstein rejected a probabilistic interpretation of quantum physics, the Copenhagen Interpretation, all the way to his death. Many of his most famous quotes like 'God does not play dice with the universe.' or 'Spooky action at a distance.' were essentially sardonic mocking of such an interpretation, the exact one that we hold as the standard today. It was none other than Max Planck that remarked, 'Science advances one funeral at a time' [1], precisely because of this issue.
And so freedom to express, debate, and have 'wrong ideas' in the public mindshare is quite critical, because it may very well be that those wrong ideas are simply the standard of truth tomorrow. But most societies naturally turn against this, because they believe they already know the truth, and fear the possibility of society being misled away from that truth. And so it's quite natural to try to clamp down, implicitly or explicitly, on public dissenting views, especially if they start to gain traction.
> none other than Einstein rejected a probabilistic interpretation of quantum physics
That has been communicated to you wrong and a subtle distinction makes a world of difference.
Plenty of physicists then and now still work hard on trying to figure out how to remove uncertainty in quantum mechanics. It's important to remember that randomness is a measurement of uncertainty.
We can't move forward if the current paradigm isn't challenged. But the way it is challenged is important. Einstein wasn't going around telling everyone they were wrong, but he was trying to get help in the ways he was trying to solve it. You still have to explain the rest of physics to propose something new.
Challenging ideas is fine, it's even necessary, but at the end of the day you have to pony up.
The public isn't forming opinions about things like Einstein. They just parrot authority. Most HN users don't even understand Schrödinger's cat and think there's a multiverse.
A core component of the Copenhagen interpretation is that quantum mechanics is fundamentally indeterministic meaning you are inherently and inescapably left with probabilistic/statistical systems. And yes, Einstein was saying people were wrong while offering no viable alternative. His motivation was purely ideological - he believed in a rational deterministic universe, and the Copenhagen Interpretation didn't fit his worldview.
For instance this is the complete context of his spooky action at a distance quote: "I cannot seriously believe in [the Copenhagen Interpretation] because the theory cannot be reconciled with the idea that physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky action at a distance." Framing things like entanglement as "spooky action at a distance" was obviously being intentionally antagonistic on top of it all as well.
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And yes, if it wasn't clear by my tone - I believe the West in has gradually entered onto the exact sort of death of science phase I am speaking about. A century ago you had uneducated (formally at least) brothers working as bicycle repairmen pushing forward aerodynamics and building planes in their spare time. Today, as you observe, even people with excessive formal education, access to [relatively] endless resources, endless information, and more - seem to have little ambition in exploiting that, rather than passively consuming it. It goes some way to explaining why some think LLMs might lead to AGI.
You still gravely misunderstand what has happened and what the conversation in physics is. I'm not just making shit up or guessing, but I do have a degree in physics. There is much more nuance to this than you'd get from Pop-Sci or even basic classes. So I'll let you in on what physicists are talking about over beers and to one another. What's going on in the papers and between them.
What you seem to misunderstand is that science is not a mechanical process. It is artistic.
You have to find new ideas and you have to challenge conventions. It is about how you challenge these ideas. It is about how you prove you are right. You're right to say that claims are one thing and proofs are another, but this is why Einstein worked on this problem rather than stating it and moving on. There's a big difference.
Let's look at Schrodinger's Cat
I hold the same belief as Einstein and this is also true for most physicists. The cat is EITHER alive or dead. Regardless of our act of checking.
Here's the big problem... and is a big part everybody misses:
A photon is an observer. The cat is an observer. The detector that releases the poison is an observer. The literal particle that is being radiated from the isotope is, you guessed it, an observer. Literally everything is an observer. An interaction necessitates observation.
So when Einstein says "Do you believe the moon only exists when I look at it?" he's talking saying he isn't special. It would be silly to think that that happens. And truth is, he's right! We can be on opposite sides of the planet and you can see the moon while I can't and vise versa. But hey, maybe I don't exist and this is all in your head! So stop arguing with yourself I guess?
MOST physicists believe what Einstein believed.
Most of us don't believe there are these infinite universes spawning to "brute force search" the universe, checking literally every possible path. This infinite multiverse is the same thing as "we all live in a simulation". Instead, we believe that we simply do not have access to this information. That is a VERY different answer. But notice something critical, how do we differentiate the two? How would we differentiate the two? Unfortunately, so far, it looks like that is not possible. But we have reasons to believe one side over another. Given everything we know so far, the universe doesn't like to just needlessly use energy.
So we're presented with two (technically more) options:
1) There are an infinite number of universes, corresponding to all possible events as would be viewed by all possible observers. Thus, the universe is doing a brute force search on whatever its solution space is.
2) The information is unavailable
2 a) We can't access that information
2 b) We don't know how to access that information
Einstein believed 2b. Most physicists sit in 2, and I'm willing to bet even Max Tegmark believes #2 is right. More people are split between 2a and 2b, but no one is really ruling either option out. Certainly we hope the answer is 2b, but until someone proves that we can't access the information, we're going to be having this debate. Of course, there's actually one more answer that will change the debate: someone proves the answer is unprovable (this actually seems to be the current likely option btw).
We should also believe 2 because we have examples of both and they're quite common.
2a) If you get into actually doing physics work you will see how complex measurements actually are. You can't actually ever directly measure something, it is always through some chain of proxies. Really, the big question with the cat here is trying to come up with a clever solution so this. Maybe we're making false assumptions. Maybe we can detect the sound of the glass cracking when it releases the poison. Maybe the cat always purrs while it is alive. Those would be ways to indirectly determine if the cat is alive or dead. But it is a thought experiment for a reason.
2b) Heat is the great example of information loss. We have time, which forces a one-way computation. We can watch particles float around and progress from time t_0 to time t_n. We know that there was a unique path and a truthful answer to how these particles moved. But if you hand someone only the data for t_0 and t_n they will be unable to tell you what trajectories those particles took! They can only do this probabilistically!
That's doesn't mean all these potential universes exist, that just means we lost the information!
Similarly, the math says a blackhole is a singularity. A point where there's infinite density in an infinitely small space. But this doesn't mean this thing definitely 100% positively unquestionably exists. That's a laughable idea. There's other explanations that have yet to be ruled out. There's other explanations that have yet to be found!
So it must be the math that is "broken". Doesn't mean it is easy to fix, but it needs to be fixed. Our physics models are incomplete. That's okay! We still have work to do.
Think about what you've said. If it were true, no progress would ever happen. Like the universe didn't suddenly change when Newton and Leibniz invented calculus! Obviously our physics models back then were wrong. The question is how wrong. As best as we can tell, we are still converging. There is noise, but you can still converge with noise. Yes, there are big problems with academia today, and they should be pushed back against (I'm not shy about doing this myself if you check my comment history), but that's different than what you're suggesting.
So here's your mistake: you think your information is complete. Really, we have barely scratched the surface here. And go ahead, prove me wrong. There's a multitude on Nobels to be awarded for proving any of these points.
> Disagreeing with some consensus is not "anti-science".
Be careful of gymnastics.
Yes, science requires the ability to disagree. You can even see in my history me saying a scientist needs to be a bit anti authoritarian!
But HOW one goes about disagreeing is critical.
Sometimes I only have a hunch that what others believe is wrong. They have every right to call me stupid for that. Occasionally I'll be able to gather the evidence and prove my hunch. Then they are stupid for not believing like I do, but only after evidenced. Most of the time I'm wrong though. Trying to gather evidence I fail and just support the status quo. So I change my mind.
Most importantly, I just don't have strong opinions about most things. Opinions are unavoidable, strong ones aren't. If I care about my opinion, I must care at least as much about the evidence surrounding my opinion. That's required for science.
Look at it this way. When arguing with someone are you willing to tell them how to change your mind? I will! If you're right, I want to know! But frankly, I find most people are arguing to defend their ego. As if being wrong is something to be embarrassed about. But guess what, we're all wrong. It's all about a matter of degree though. It's less wrong to think the earth is a sphere than flat because a sphere is much closer to an oblate spheroid.
If you can't support your beliefs and if you can't change your mind, I don't care who you listen to, you're not listening to science
The stats you mention seem to suggest you are a believer in `The Science` - an anti scientific idea if ever there was one and one that's undergoing erosion day by day.
Me? I barely believe in the results of my experiments. But I also know what this poll is intending to ask and yeah, I read enough papers, processed enough data, did enough math, and tracked enough predictions that ended up coming true. That's enough to convince me it's pretty likely that those spending a fuck more time on it (and are the ones making those predictions that came true!) probably know what they're talking about.
According to your model, scientists who believe in God are anti-science.
That's almost weirder than declaring that 15% of people not believing in anthropogenic global warming is some sort of crisis. It's a theory that seems to fit the data (with caveats), not an Axiom of Science.
It's actually bizarre that 85% of people trust Science so much that they would believe in something that they have never seen any direct evidence of. That's a result of marketing. The public don't believe in global warming because it's "correct"; they have no idea if it's correct, and they often believe in things that are wrong that people in white coats on television tell them.
> According to your model, scientists who believe in God are anti-science.
In a way, yes. But every scientist I know that also believes in God is not shy in admitting their belief is unscientific.
The reason I'm giving this a bit of a pass is because in science we need things that are falsifiable. The burden of proof should be on those believing in God. But such a belief is not falsifiable. You can't prove or disprove God. If they aren't pushy, they're okay with admitting that, and don't make a big deal out of it then I don't really care. That's just being a decent person.
But that's a very different thing than not believing in things we have strong physical evidence for, strong mathematical theories, and a long record of making counter factual predictions. The great thing about science is it makes predictions. Climate science has been making pretty good ones since the 80's. Every prediction comes with error bounds. Those are tightening but the climate today matches those predictions within error. That's falsifiable
Climatologists have certainly invested much more in PR than geologists. So much so that their activities now look more like a global cult than science.
It has nothing to do with science, but rather people not finding that a sufficient justification for unpopular actions. For instance it's 100% certain that banning sugary drinks would dramatically improve public health, reduce healthcare costs, increase life expectancy, and just generally make society better in every single way.
So should we ban sugary drinks? It'd be akin to me trying to claim that if you say no then you're anti-science, anti-health, or whatever else. It's just a dumb, divisive, and meaningless label - exactly the sort politicians love so much now a days.
Of course there's some irony in that it will become a self fulfilling prophecy. The more unpopular things done in the name of 'the science', the more negative public sentiment to 'the science' will become. Probably somewhat similar to how societies gradually became secular over time, as it became quite clear that actions done in the name of God were often not exactly pious.