Believing in experts

[Dill]

(07-03-2023, 04:31 PM)HarleyDog Wrote: Not sure why you were rude to him, but I will give you what you want:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/if-you-say-science-is-right-youre-wrong/
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/20-of-the-greatest-blunders-in-science-in-the-last-20-years
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/5-times-that-science-got-it-wrong
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/science-top-10-erroneous-results-mistakes
I didn't read them, but I posted per your request because I'm a nice guy.

Just a quick note, as your first article points out, science is not "absolutist." 
Scientific theories are always provisional. When evidence changes they change.
They make mistakes, but in a way they can learn from them. 
Understanding how mistakes are "captured" for progress is part of science literacy.

Science is not like, say, fundamentalist Christian interpretation of the Bible, which does not count 
the 10 commandments as "hypotheses" or consensus at the moment. 

You just proved that scientists DO make mistakes. 


But no one has argued that scientists don't make mistakes. 

People here only argue that scientists are more likely to be right about, say, how to manage 
a virus-based pandemic, than people who know nothing about viruses.

Just as a real mechanic is more likely to be right about that clunking sound in your 
car's engine than someone who knows nothing about cars--even if mechanics are not always right.

If there is a pandemic and we want some coordinated defense against it, then most Americans want us
to turn to scientists for policy advice--even if (per your links) Thalidomide was a disaster and the Challenger blew up. 

The question now is why so many Fox viewers, who regularly take their cars to mechanics when
the transmission freezes, suddenly balk at trusting people with great expertise about countering 
pandemics.

I can see why you might worry about corporate profiteering; it exists, and for them any pandemic is an opportunity. 
But that's where "leftist" critique comes in--so who'd want to spread distrust of "leftists" and science during a pandemic?