Organized Academic Overlords
I am often amused ("amused" is code for really pissed off) by people suggesting that scientists are part of some organized conspiracy, or hegemonic cabal. Some will even point to articles like this one By Dana Nuccitelli, August 15, 2019 (This link will open in new window.) sponsored by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists as proof that "we" are pushing fringe conspiracies. Oh, and for the record the percentage is rapidly approaching a value indistinguishable from 100%.
Far too many people, not part of the cognoscenti, clamor for irrefutable proof (selectively) when confronted with uncomfortable information. A profound tragedy of our educational systems is that so many are so very ill informed as to what constitutes "knowing", and "proof" in the scientific community. Catch-22, as a member of said cabal there is (by definition) nothing I can ever say or do to convince a science-denier even if I could produce "proof" (even in a form acceptable to them) of my "knowledge".
Scientific thinking is not the outcome of natural processes. In fact, quite the opposite. Letting nature run its course results in magical thinking, holistic "medicine", and all manner of "new age" nonsense.
Someone mentioned the @rustyshackifyrd reply to Neil's comment and the above flashed into my brain and needed to be expelled to preserve my sanity.
RIP
Comments
97% agree on gravity too
It's a conspiracy!
Questions, Knowledge, Proof, Understanding
These four common words are all very much related, and in my not all that scientific mind, are essential to the scientific method. Though I have strung them together here in a straight line of words they probably deserve to be represented in a circle, a ven diagram or some three or four dimensional representation that I are nowhere near comprehending, and in no particular order.
From the seminal question “Why?, born in my youth, I have been walking through my life looking for “the” answer. Thankfully, I have not found it yet. I am still curious, awestruck, confused and lacking the finality of an answer to that question “Why?” that I once believed would be my salvation.
In a 1949 letter to a friend, Albert Einstein wrote:
That’s very much the way I feel as well.
Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes
they don't know what science is now
This is why they took the science out of school. And teaching critical thinking. Those kids from the 60's and 70's that got that by high school turned out to be radicals ya know.
The more you think you know, the less you know. The know-it-all never does.
Anyone that thinks scientists would all agree on something easily without fighting all the way to the end without exhausting every possible idea has never listened to a group of gull experts argue over the parentage of a hybrid gull.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
My favorite example
For many years I was the lone physicist amongst a gaggle of ornithologists, birders, wildlife conservationists, and other assorted experts from all over the planet at a very important sanctuary. One day I was acting as a gatekeeper and parking lot attendant. A couple, newly arrived from the East Coast, were strolling in the parking lot discussing the birds they had identified that day. As they drew near I mentioned the Western Meadowlark I had heard earlier that day.
The gentleman barely looked my way as he explained to the lady that Western Meadowlarks were decidedly not in this region, … Period … end of report.
RIP, he ain't no birder …