this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2024
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Being all like "I fucking love science" whilst perpetuating ignorance of what science actually is like
Elaborate with example pls
Anyone calling themselves a "scientist"
Biologist, astronomer, mathematicians, these are all valid professions.
Scientist is not a profession.
Scientist is the broader category though. If a square says “I’m a rectangle” they aren’t lying.
It is but no educated person qualifies themselves by that name as it means nothing.
People seek to label themselves in the most accurate category not the broadest one.
I am shape.
I’m not sure that’s true. If you ask someone what they do for a living and they say, “I’m a doctor,” you don’t say, “I doubt it. A real doctor would say, ‘I’m a cardiovascular surgeon,’ or ‘I’m a pediatrician.’” We adjust our labels for our audience.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find a biologist or a climatologist who might just say, “I’m a scientist” to a broad audience. Not that they couldn’t use the more accurate label, just that they don’t necessarily have to.
I'll keep an eye out for one, but in the meantime, I'll be more specific about what I mean about ignoring how science actually is.
One of the things I find most beautiful about science is how it thrives in uncertainty — great science is more likely to arise from a "huh, that's strange..." than a big "Eureka" moment, not least of all because most breakthroughs involve large collaborations of researchers.
"Scientism" is the term usually used for the kind of thing that irks me. I'm realising now that I feel unequipped to properly explain that, so I'm going to point to a video I like on this matter by a cardiologist and science communicator I like: https://youtu.be/CVPy25wQ07k
I’ve got a great example. My wife and I argue about directions all the time. I usually think Google and Apple maps are going to give me the quickest route because it’s an algorithm based on more data than I currently have like traffic and current road conditions. She’s usually all about her “gut” feeling and it involves these very convoluted paths that involve way too many extra intersections and very unknown conditions like others thinking the exact same thing and making it way more congested. I wasn’t even going to get into things like game theory since that would be way over her head. She very smart just not about nerdy things like that. Anyway I was like fine, ok let’s test it. Let’s see which way is quicker. Of course no two situations are going to be exact given changing variables like traffic patterns, times of day, construction, etc. but given enough data we could definitely prove which way is better: her gut feeling or taking the suggested route from the appropriate app. That’s science. Come up with a hypothesis, then a method to test the hypothesis, and then do the test. In this case it’s pretty simple to figure out if it works. You’re just comparing times. But nope, doesn’t wanna do it. And she’s all about the science. During COVID she even said we should be doing what the epidemiologists and doctors suggest since they “have done the science”. Here’s a chance for use to do a very simple version of that same thing.