Is the scientific community stupid?

I post this thread to discuss an opinion I noticed in another thread:

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Increasingly we encounter tThe following sorts of science skepticism
And general skepticism about so called experts?

Is climate change science a hoax?
What is The age of the earth?
What is the origin of life?
Is evolution even possible?
Was there a Big Bang? Do cosmologists have any clue about our universe?
Was there a world wide flood 4000 years ago?
Do vaccines cause autism, are vaccines safe?
Is the earth really flat?
Did we land on the moon?
Are there ufo’s flying around? Is the government covering up extraterrestrial contact?
Are environmental regulations addressing real dangers?
Do scientists have a clue about what we should or should not eat?
Is there any proven harm from smoking tobacco?​

All this raises the general questions of what constitutes “proof”
And what degree of proof/certainty is required before we alter our behavioral policies?
How do we know to what extent we should trust experts?

 

Climate change=no
Age of Earth=Mother Earth never tells her age
Origin of life=Ya got me
Evolution=Yes
Big Bang=Sure, why not Do they have a clue=Compared to who?They are alway learning
Flood=No
Autism=Maybe Safe=Better than what they prevent
Flat=No
Moon=Yes
UFO's= I wish yes but the answer is no
Regulations=Necessary
Eating=Compared to who......doctors? Individually=yes, as a group, it's a guess
Yes

 

The scientific community is not stupid but there's a lot of politics passing a science.

Are we going to have a nuclear winter? Do we have global warming? "Scientists" claimed they're both true.

 

Climate change is not a hoax. Man made or anthropogenic warming, likely hoax
Age of the earth? unknowable.
Origin of life? unknowable. Science will artificially create life though.
Evolution? Yes
Big Bang... Unknowable.
Flood? possible that it was very localized. but doubt that it was a global event.
Vaccines? Trick question. There are zero cases where autism is demonstrated in folks who didn't receive at least one vaccination. Usually science calls this a slam dunk in the affirmative... (see global warming correlatory theory above...)

Flat earth? Only after use of heavy machinery and entirely localized.
Land on the moon. Yes
UFOs. Yes. Does the government cover up things like UFOs. Yes
Environmental regulations address earl dangers? Yes
Science of Diet? No.
Smoking causes harms? Yes. except for the disclaimer that says, smoking does not uniformly cause the same harms to large populations. And it does not, in fact always cause cancer. So while it may be a correlative statistical relationship, it isn't entirely positive. So, like the vaccination discussion above, the certainty of the correlation isn't complete.

Overall, there is a much more important question here. Do people take these notions on faith because it's their nature to do so? or is there substantive evidence, repeatable process that always produces results that make these kinds of observations the providence of natural law, or not. That is more the question that should be asked.

It's like accepting the articles of religious faith;, but from science.

 

I am not religious. However, I can't help wondering. Either matter has been in existence forever or matter has been created from nothing. It has to be one or the other of these two impossible conditions.

 

It's not that scientists are stupid, but the way they talk is different from the way lay people talk. For instance. Scientists don't like to use the word "prove" because some of them believe in falsification, ie. a theory works so long as it isn't falsified. A theory isn't proven to work, but it stands the test of time. It's understanding the lingo of scientists that keeps people from understanding the work they do. And that is a serious issue. If the vast majority of scientists think climate change is real, it's real.

 

Einstein showed the equivalence between energy and mass (matter) in his famous equation. So, energy is good enough. Science doesn't accept the "from nothing" part, either. The "big bang" does not suggest from nothing.

As for the "forever" part, science has nothing against eternity and neither does religion.

We work too hard to pit religion and science against each other, thus losing our way with both.

 

While expertise may be what we feel is best at the moment, it's not infoulable at all, and in fact has a long history of holding firmly to a belief even as evidence for it fades away. People don't be wrong and for many, so long as they don't admit they are- they aren't.

The world was flat for thousands of years in the perception of almost all men, despite the fact that the sun, the moon and all heavenly bodies were round. The evidence was obvious, just look around; look at the surface of the ocean for example. If it wasn't flat, the water would all run off.....

Sometimes what we think is obvious, things we see in the current state of the art (which is always) are greatly affected by the things we don't yet know that we don't know.

My opinions on your list....
Climate change- Nature has been changing it for eons. Man does influence, no question- but the vast glaciers of the ice ages have never melted due to human influences.
Age of the earth seems pretty well defined at around 4 billion years. Unless you subscribe fully to some religions, but that makes no difference.
Origin of life- pretty well recognized as not being fully determined, but narrowed down to a few possibles.
Evolution- is obvious to an open mind. Far too many examples of it in all living things to be imaginary. The problem for doubters is perspective, thinking in lifetimes rather than millions of lifetimes.
Big bang? Since the movement of celestial objects is radiating from a central point, we know that something at that point propelled a vast amount of matter away from that central point.
Much like ballistics, which we understand pretty well.
Vaccines causing autism? seems like a stretch, but many medical interactions are yet to be understood.
Flat earth... The earth is even tired of that one.
The moon- too much proof to doubt at this point. Kind of like questioning the holocaust while looking at the mass graves, talking to survivors.... you have to be short a few.
UFO's- of course, unknown stuff flies through our atmosphere everyday. Are their Aliens on board? We don't know..... Except in Roswell, where they are pretty sure....
Environmental regulations- Some are of course critical and valuable. Others are laws created in response to demands and fears, far out of proportion to reality. That's human nature.
Scientists and diet... yes they know a lot, but not everything. And of course, we are all a bit different. Peanuts for example are loved by most, deadly for some.
Tobacco: Too many really nasty black lungs and cancerous tumors removed from bodies of smokers to question that one. Proof is tangible, plus common sense says breathing smoke is dangerous, most people who die in fires are dead from smoke than flames or heat.

 

Of course climate change is real. It changes constantly and has since time began. The real issues are what causes the change and what can be done about it?

 

The real issue and serious issue for science is it’s politicization.

 

Same problem. Either the energy or matter was there to start with or either energy or matter was created from nothing. Either is impossible from what we know now, except here we are.

Science may have nothing against eternity, but no matter how you define it, the matter or energy must have been there for eternity and that is beyond definition. it got there somehow and that is something which we will never understand.

 

What it all tells me is that public education has failed a great many Americans, and that religious and political ideologies combined with the effects of constant bombardment with disinformation and general insanity online are really not helping the situation. People embrace these wackadoodle anti-science views because they have some basic emotional desire to do so, not because the evidence is truly compelling them to. If they don't trust the experts, they can research the facts for themselves. But they don't! They opt instead to consume what "facts" support their emotionally satisfying opposing beliefs. I see this everywhere from creationism to moon landing denial, flat-earthism and trumpism.

 

Science is absolutely NOT like religion.

Science has a documented track of exactly how the results of science have been derived. And, that is inclusive of all who choose to participate from around the entire world. And, every result is available for assault by those who suspect they have a better answer.

I think there IS a problem, though. I think it comes i the form of how citizens can and do consume science.

For example, it's been shown many times and in various ways that the issue of climate change is purely political at this point.

It's also confused by the fact that there ARE conspiracies out there. Antivax believers do have a point - that there is unhealthy, grossly expensive nonsense coming from big pharma. It turns out they are only wrong about the vax part. That's hard to combat, because one can not argue that there are no conspiracies.

We need better ways for nonscientists (like everyone on this board including me) to become aware of what science is really saying, and why they are saying it. And, we have to figure out how to separate that from those who, like "tobacco scientists" and those who came up with "clean coal", work to propagate lies for personal profit while doing real damage to the lives of our citizens.

 

I'm not sure of what you mean by "beyond definition".

I don't find it surprising that we have little evidece of what was going on before this universe or what might be going on now outside of this universe.

Those aren't places where we know how to look right now.

The current answer ("I don't know") seems entirely sufficient. And, I'm glad we still have people trying to figure it out.

 

The doubt stems primarily from journalism who embellish and dumb down science for the average reader.

 

The reason people feel science is religious is because there are people who advocate for field authority and recognition to drive the truth of science over actual scientific debate.

 

Stupid? No. In some instances do some scientists rely too much on their own assumptions and less on what they actually know? Yes.

Do non scientific people offer take those studies based on assumptions call them settled science and try to change society based on them? Yes! All the time.

 

I don't understand what you mean by "advocate for field authority" or "actual scientific debate".

Can you give an example?

 

UFOs unproven.
Age of the earth appears to be roughly 4 billion years old. However given a God who is capable of creating the universe merely by stating it, and who has further stated that sal ation is by grace and grace alone then there must be a seemingly logical alternative to God did it. That being so then appearances could well be quite deceiving.

Climate change? Of course, the geological record suggests at least two periods in which the planet was nearly completely frozen over. Fortunately, the climate changed
Are scientist stupid? No, neither are non scientists.

Do vaccines cause autism? I have yet to see any real evidence supporting the idea.

 

You dont know what clean coal is? It's the same process as green energy is when I worked for a pellet plant

 

"Clean coal" has been part of the pitch of those promoting several different processes - washing coal to remove dirt and rock, attempts to remove sulfur and other chemicals all the way to claims of reducing CO2 emissions.

Saying "clean coal" doesn't mean much of anything related to effective policy on climate.

At least with pelletizing wood products one isn't mining ancient carbon to add to the total carbon in the biosphere.

 

No you dont understand, I tried to load a old picture I have from google but it doesn't work.

You have scrubbers , it comes out like water vapor

 

And this stuff is huge.