this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
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Do not trust science. Understand it and take it into account rationally.
Science isn't a better religion than any other.
Edit: So all those downvotes are from people who think that science shouldn't be understood, but instead trusted blindly and believed in? Okay then. That sort or defeats the purpose and concept of science but okay.
If you think evidence-based reasoning is a form of religion, you need to check your house for gas leaks.
Read again.
I think that believing in science is a form of religion.
Explain how you can rationally take science into account without believing it. I'm very interested in watching you try to untwist that pretzel.
Bayesian logic. Basically take information into account with a degree of credibility, but without considering that it is merely true or false. It's simple really.
Bayes' theorem doesn't mean "don't believe anything", you highschool dropout. It is a method of statistical analysis. Specifically, is a method of determining which unknown events are most likely connected to a known event based on the limited information we have. It's not a general logical framework, and certainly doesn't work the way you described it. In fact, it literally requires believing in some kind of first principle as a foundation from which you can then extrapolate the likelihood of the unknown. Expanded further since his death, the general idea of Bayesian inferencing requires repeatedly updating your assumptions based on new information. So it certainly doesn't mean believe nothing; if anything, it means "believe the current thing until proven otherwise".
Ah, personal attacks, the sign of honesty and strong argumentation. Are you okay?
I never said to not believe in anything. Anything requires axioms including Bayesian epistemology, and that's a nice strawman you tried to build. I said not to believe in science, as the point of science is to approach truths of reality without getting influenced by beliefs; believing in science as if it is just "truth provider" defeats the purpose as science itself tells to not believe it. Trying to paint that as "don't believe anything" is absurd and dishonest.
I have zero patience for pseudo-intellectualism.
That is not the point of science. Science does not "tell us to not believe it." What podcast did you hear that on?
So you need patience to avoid being manipulative? Okay.
The point of science is to constantly attack what is considered to be true as a way to validate or invalidate it. That's the point of the scientific protocol, to do your best to prove something wrong, and upon failure to consider that it might be true until proven wrong. You don't go all "I think the earth is flat so I'll do my best to find arguments as to why it is flat".
That would definitionally not be believing in science, because that would be an entirely unscientific approach. Believing in science would lead you to do the opposite of this, actually.
Science has many biases, for decades "science" said that cigarettes were healthy, studies said that GMOs caused cancer, and only time showed those to be wrong. Believing in science means that you consider that the conclusions of current science are necessarily right, which is wrong. And science itself does not consider that it is always right.
None of what you just said is correct.
Scientific consensus was never that cigarettes were healthy. Advertisers pretended it did, and you clearly fell for the ruse.
Consensus was never that GMOs caused cancer. There's no proven study that established that link.
And lastly, "science itself does not consider that it is always right" makes no sense as a statement. Are you trying to say that science reflects our ever-changing understanding, and thus we must always be ready to update our beliefs when presenting with new information? Because it that's your point, then one, you are extremely bad at expressing what you mean, and two, that means you believe in science.
All right, so this is their stupid fucking argument:
Believing in someone's research without studying it yourself is just religion.
The reason why they're fucking stupid is all the peer review that goes into it from professionals who specialize in the fields they peer review. While religion generally stands on the feet of "trust me bro", trust in science has a bit more of a backbone. You, or someone you trust to be knowledgeable, can go back and fact check work.
Aside from all of those arguments though, science is something you perform yourself. That in no way can be compared to a religion, as you can produce irrefutable results on your own with science. Not on all subjects, but I have yet to see religion produce irrefutable results using their methods on literally anything.
That's not my argument.
Instead of being uselessly insulting, feel free to read my other comments that explained my argument and you'll see that this is not what I meant. Here for example: https://lemmy.world/comment/5589810
Your comment is inappropriately rude, and adds little more than hostility to the discussion.
This is a moderator warning to revise it.
Being called "fucking stupid" isn't rude, but calling out an useless participation because of that is rude?
They're both rude, and I don't appreciate either. But
If you de-escalate and take time to explain your position better and they're still rude to you, and someone reports their behavior, I'll give them a similar warning.
Both were called fucking stupid, first the comment talked about "their argument", then why "they're stupid".
Your opinion on my argument doesn't seem like a very good reason, moderation wise.
And I already had explained my argument in details with another line of comments before this person left theirs. They made an attempt at attacking my argument without bothering to read what i wrote, for the sole purpose of being insulting. Thus my response saying that the comment was useless.
Yeah, they did call you stupid also, and that's rude. Sorry I missed that.
Perhaps you should revise your response to link to the line of comments you wish they'd read.
Done.
I trust that science CAN find an answer, and while there are bad studies, ultimately science is practically the only way to understand the world and find the closest thing there is to objective truth. It does require adequate education to sift the wheat from the chaff, but ultimately the scientific method is one of the most powerful tools humanity has in its belt.
Which is my point, you don't believe in science, you understand its purpose and take information it provides rationally
I get that there is an almost religious dogmatism in some parts of science, and if that is the aspect you are referring to, then I don't disagree, but your statements without context come across as a religious person who begrudgingly accepts that science can be right about certain things but view the whole thing with perhaps an unreasonable skepticism. I'm not saying you actually do, but that's how those comments come off wtihout additional context.
Someone saying "I believe in science." could mean that they blindly believe whatever someone in a white coat says, but could also mean they believe that the scientific method is the ultimate tool of truth discovery, or someone who believes that science, collectively, is able to eventually root out incorrect information via reproducible studies. It's an ambiguous saying.
Lmao. Ironic that you're trying to be sassy while you failed to read what I wrote properly, and ended up understanding the opposite of what I said.
The whole point of science is you don't have to trust it because to follow the scientific method, it must be reproducible.
You can read the paper yourself and determine if there are any holes to poke in the methodology or examine any biases. But ultimately, you can reproduce it yourself.
Comparing science to a religion is flawed because religion mandates belief whereas science, by definition, does not.
Science doesn't mandate anything, but people do in the name of science. Covid was a perfect example of that, with so many "doctors" leading a cult (Didier Raoult from France managed to gather so many believers that he ended up having a worldwide impact which slowed down research of a vaccine globally).
Those people do believe in science, and as soon as a "scientist" tells them what they want to hear, they believe it because they think that it's science. If you define science only by the ideal scientific methodology then of course it isn't comparable to religions.