Comments on: Science progresses III: dogmatism and new papers http://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/science-progresses-iii-dogmatism-and-new-papers/ Thu, 23 May 2013 06:57:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: David Hone http://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/science-progresses-iii-dogmatism-and-new-papers/#comment-1680 Thu, 09 Apr 2009 00:16:20 +0000 http://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/?p=724#comment-1680 Again, totally agree. On the ‘belive’ vs ‘know’ point, we often are guilty of the reverse – “I belive that WAIR offers the best hypothesis for the origin of flight” makes perfect sense, even to another scientist in terms on common use of the language to mean “I have considred the evidence and while it’s not 100% I accept that on balance this is the best one”, yet others will leap on the word ‘belive’ to use it in the context of faith as opposed to understanding. ‘Design’ is another one where colloquilaism vs specific interpretation in specific contexts cuases problems, and let’s not even mention ‘theory’….

]]> By: David Raikow http://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/science-progresses-iii-dogmatism-and-new-papers/#comment-1678 Wed, 08 Apr 2009 17:32:04 +0000 http://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/?p=724#comment-1678 American society appears to abhor the changing of opinions, conlcusions, or belief. There can be no middle ground. You are either for or against, a faithful beliver or a heretic, and if you change, you’re a waffler. This was epitomized by President Bush, who by his very nature did not consider the quality of evidence in making a decision, when he rarely considered any evidence at all. And look where that got us.

Morevoer, “to know” is often used in conversation when “to believe” is actually being expressed, as in, “I haven’t seen the evidence, but everyone knows he’s guilty”.

I’m not sure if the pracitce of reporting “balanced” stories in the media, regardless of the validity of an opposing viewpoint, is a cause or an effect of this inability to think critically. It even backfires in educational settings. The edict to “teach the controversy” has been a disaster, because scientists think controversy is on the order of the relative importance of allopatric speciation, and the public thinks controversy is on the order of whether eveolution is true.

Thus the concept of conditional confidence within science is totally alien to most people. I doubt the media, or the public, will ever be able to appreciate the difference between knowledge and belief, let alone subtelties of evaluating how a particular paper affects a field of study.

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