Researchers Warn That Social Media May Be 'Fundamentally at Odds' With Science (techcrunch.com) 217
An anonymous reader shares a report: A special set of editorials published in today's issue of the journal Science argue that social media in its current form may well be fundamentally broken for the purposes of presenting and disseminating facts and reason. The algorithms are running the show now, they argue, and the systems priorities are unfortunately backwards. In an incisive (and free to read) opinion piece by Dominique Brossard and Dietram Scheufele of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the basic disconnect with what scientists need and what social media platforms provide is convincingly laid out.
"Rules of scientific discourse and the systematic, objective, and transparent evaluation of evidence are fundamentally at odds with the realities of debates in most online spaces," they write. "It is debatable whether social media platforms that are designed to monetize outrage and disagreement among users are the most productive channel for convincing skeptical publics that settled science about climate change or vaccines is not up for debate." The most elementary feature of social media that reduces the effect of communication by scientists is pervasive sorting and recommendation engines. This produces what Brossard and Scheufele call "homophilic self-sorting" -- the ones who are shown this content are the ones who are already familiar with it. In other words, they're preaching to the choir.
"Rules of scientific discourse and the systematic, objective, and transparent evaluation of evidence are fundamentally at odds with the realities of debates in most online spaces," they write. "It is debatable whether social media platforms that are designed to monetize outrage and disagreement among users are the most productive channel for convincing skeptical publics that settled science about climate change or vaccines is not up for debate." The most elementary feature of social media that reduces the effect of communication by scientists is pervasive sorting and recommendation engines. This produces what Brossard and Scheufele call "homophilic self-sorting" -- the ones who are shown this content are the ones who are already familiar with it. In other words, they're preaching to the choir.
No. . . really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yet another argument, (Score:2, Interesting)
for treating the internet and many of its services as infrastructure and therefore part of the common. Its control and management can't be left to those whose mandate is to monetize everything in sight at the cost of whatever collateral damage we let them get away with.
I get that setting up that control under governments and citizens' committees and educational institutions would be a huge task, not just logistically and financially but also socially, psychologically, and philosophically.
I think we tend to
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I think we tend to view the birth of the internet as the modern-day equivalent of the advent of the printing press. But it's probably greater by several orders of magnitude, because of today's vastly larger population and the internet's hugely faster and more widespread dissemination of information. This makes every consideration of managing it and mitigating its effects terribly complex.
I think that effort is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition of maintaining a viable, advanced human civilization.
If the printing press was responsible for hundreds of years of religious wars following the spread of protestantism enabled by the distribution of bibles translated to native languages, then in comparison so far i think we're doing great.
What's good for the goose is good for gander and I believe short term negative effects are exaggerated while positive long term effects are underestimated.
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What's good for the goose is good for gander and I believe short term negative effects are exaggerated while positive long term effects are underestimated.
Fair point. It also make me wonder if perhaps the negative effects of the printing press were 'front loaded' to a greater extent than those of the internet, with the positive effects catching up and surpassing later on. We've had a pretty great ride with the internet AFAIC, with the most damaging effects becoming obvious in the last five years or so.
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We've had a pretty great ride with the internet AFAIC, with the most damaging effects becoming obvious in the last five years or so.
I'd just add the view that experiencing short term positive effects are often exaggerated.
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control under governments and citizens' committees and educational institutions
In the recent past you might have relied on one or all of those nebulously defined groups to rationalize slavery, provide evidence of the harmlessness of smoking, have homosexuality designated a disease or expound on the rational and moral superiority of fascism.
"Social media" is a direct consequence of the 1st amendment and its various equivalents, so why not solve the problem at its root? Our precious Science can't be expected to tolerate these excessive liberties!
Settled Science (Score:2)
With that said, the argument about global warming is a red herring. Pollution (of all kinds) is bad. CO2 Pollution is bad because it causes all these other things BESDIES global warming. Any one of the other things is a reason to stop producing as much as we do. Then there's plastics pollution, there's arsenic, there's heavy met
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You have to admit though there is a difference between a scientist questioning "settled science" (they'll develop a hypothesis, define tests to prove or disprove the hypothesis, and they'll share the results of the whole thing) vs some anti-science cracker out there coming up with their own BS posting to FB to try and gain followers...
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wait...
Never once did I say that scientific rigor is not important. That genius on Facebook is probably trying to sell something. To You. Probably something that is bad for you.
Tide Pod Challenge
Antifreeze As Cool aid Challenge
Cinnamon Challenge
10 Gallons of water in one sitting Challenge
All of these will hurt you. Badly. TLDR; Science is about disagreement (using logic and evidence, an
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This couldnt have been accidental.
So why are you being a fucking dishonest cunt right now?
Re:Settled Science (Score:4)
In the 80's, "Settled Science" told us that butter was unhealthy, so science's most ardent believers switched to margarine...
Which unfortunately, has a heart-disease risk several times that of butter. Those who believed science was some sort of unquestionable truth ended up dying before they could pass their reverence of science on to their progeny. Which is how we get to where we are now - scientists complaining they have little to no credibility with the general public.
It dismays me that people who can be extraordinarily smart in science and technical fields, many of whom hold one or more advanced degrees, cannot even field a sound and convincing argument in the well of public discourse. What good is science without the ability to articulate its findings to the public at large in a manner useful to humanity? What these guys need is a public speaking / creative writing course, not a withering polemic about how their past failings have come back to haunt them.
Re:Settled Science (Score:5, Insightful)
While scientists are often inarticulate, members of the media are not supposed to be. Their purpose is to disseminate important and complex scientific results in terms most people can understand. It's not supposed to be the job of scientists. Unfortunately, scientists are getting the blame for media's failure.
Also, I've come to realize the field of public relations plays a role in this too. Public relations professionals are supposed to act as a buffer between the scientists and the media. They should be coaching the scientists on how to interact better with the public, and they should also be making sure the media's reporting is accurate.
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Unfortunately, the results of scientific research are often nuanced, and that makes it difficult to communicate. Scientists don't usually discuss their research directly with the general public. I agree that this has largely to do with the fact most scientists are inarticulate. However, it also has to do with our media having no tolerance for nuance. Detailed scientific research gets distilled down to "butter bad, margarine good".
Even more unfortunately, the alleged scientific inquiry surrounding human biology and metabolism has been utter dogshit for the past century. There was no nuance in the original study. It literally concluded "butter bad, margarine good." The reporters didn't miss anything. The science really was that awful. This pattern was repeated an appalling number of times, especially early last century. Not to mention the meddling of industry in science for profit. General Mills is guilty of crimes against huma
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Actually, there are well-verified and well understood scientific results. I think you really do not know how Science works. Sure, if anybody comes up with extraordinary evidence, then even these will be re-examined. But in the absence of that extraordinary evidence no sane scientist will disagree with these fundamentals.
Now, for example, if climate people say "the Science is settled" they are indeed selling something. They do that because they have realized that the common person is incapable of understandi
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Actually, there are well-verified and well understood scientific results. I think you really do not know how Science works. Sure, if anybody comes up with extraordinary evidence, then even these will be re-examined. But in the absence of that extraordinary evidence no sane scientist will disagree with these fundamentals.
Now, for example, if climate people say "the Science is settled" they are indeed selling something. They do that because they have realized that the common person is incapable of understanding that some Scientific results are exceptionally solid and continue denying what is there and well-proven. Hence, in the face of an existential threat that a large part of the human race refuses to see, marketing methods get employed. You know, be a little less truthful but actually may make the human race survive. Because we are heading for a cliff at high speed. Sure, that cliff is very distant at this time. But the respective scientific experts can see it clearly and have seen it clearly for something like 40 years now. Yet the common person refuses to understand what is going on and shows no sign of slowing down.
The inconvenient truth is that climate science has along way to go before it is "Settled". Shouting down the opposition and making appeals to authority rather than discussing the very real effects of all sorts of pollution is disingenuous at best. CO2 is a knock on effect of all sorts of pollution. All of which has to be stopped. The sales job ignores all of the other issues in the pursuit of a false sense of unity to build the appeal to authority.
In other words - I understand the creation and evaluatio
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The inconvenient truth is that climate science has along way to go before it is "Settled".
Nope. It just has to overcome an extreme wall of denial and stupidity.
This is my surprised face (Score:2)
social media in its current form may well be fundamentally broken for the purposes of presenting and disseminating facts and reason
Haven't we all known this at least since the only "social media" was Usenet?
I feel like a lot of organizations have decided to put their messages on Facebook and Twitter simply because of the size of the potential audience, without regard for whether the messages will be effective. This is just bad lazy assumptions biting people in the ass, innit?
Now do one of these... (Score:2)
for paid publications in order to understand everything that's wrong with modern science.
Blazing Saddles got it right (Score:2)
These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know morons.
Science is not God. (Score:3)
Science is something that we, as humans, use to help our decision making, nothing more, and nothing less. The entire idea that there is only one way to do anything, and science dictates that is just wrong.
We are humans. Life is nuanced. Every decision we make depends on multiple factors, each with its own science.
Are Facebook and the like bad for the human population? I've argued against them since the first day they started distributing ads that only corporations and governments were buying and pushing. The outcome seemed obvious to me, but this has nothing to do with science, unless we are all now robots.
Anyone who stands up and tries to tell you that "science" is some golden path that we are uncovering and that it shows us the one true way, is nothing more than a modern day fortune teller.
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We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. - Carl Sagan
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True. There is no God, but Science actually exists and works.
Also, you do not understand Science. There is basically nothing in science that says there is "only one true way". That is more in line with the approach of people that claim there is a God.
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The nonsense that people can extrapolate from one post is amazing.
"Also, you do not understand Science." ?? Haha, what? I was replying to an article telling us that "science" has determined social media is bad for us.
Oh lord. Please tell me more about myself ole' prophet.
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Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone. - Jesus Christ
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The nonsense that people can extrapolate from one post is amazing.
"Also, you do not understand Science." ?? Haha, what? I was replying to an article telling us that "science" has determined social media is bad for us.
Oh lord. Please tell me more about myself ole' prophet.
--
Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone. - Jesus Christ
You really, really do not understand how Science works.
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Science is something that we, as humans, use to help our decision making, nothing more
I'm sorry to say this is bullshit, we'll try to imagine we were on a smaller planet with tiny resources of a tiny asteroid and theres only enough resources for a small group of people to get to the next planet. If you don't have science to figure out what those resources are you're species is going to go extinct.
Science IS about reality and real truths about the universe, our issue is our minds can't model the universe perfectly so we say "it's true as far as our model/data can tell" but there are data tha
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Look at your reaction to even that statement. The assumptions built in are huge, and really just tell us where you are coming from. It's a good thing in discourse to know where another stands. What is really amazing to me though is the idea that science will tell us all exactly how we should live and be humans. There are so many things about being a human on planet earth that have zero need for a scientific study, and even when the "science tells you otherwise", you still must do. I've been an engin
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Look at your reaction to even that statement. The assumptions built in are huge
No there are no assumptions because you are illiterate. We have evidence of dead planets and dying stars, anyone who doubts the sun will run out of fuel one day IS a flaming anti-science lunatic.
I can tell you the facts, and the figures and you'll reason to the wrong conclusion, see the science:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
People don't understand agendas... (Score:2)
People don't understand that social media posts often have some kind of agenda, often obfuscated so they don't know the true reasoning behind the posts.
Science doesn't have an agenda - it is based upon facts, evidence, and the rigors of scientific reasoning.
Social media posts will, however, twist things in order to get some kind of gain or advantage, but the readers may not understand what is going on.
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Science does have an agenda: it says arguments should be based on "facts, evidence, and the rigors of scientific reasoning." Just because you and I agree with it doesn't make it any less an agenda.
Unfortunately, this isn't the 19th century world of Enlightenment-era Logical Positivism where reason reigned supreme [or pretended to]. We live in a post-modern world where the very existence of facts and
What? (Score:4, Insightful)
The most elementary feature of social media that reduces the effect of communication by scientists is ...
Why would scientists give a rats ass about what is being discussed on social media? Science isn't a popularity contest. It's about peer reviewed research. And I mean actual peers. Not the cretins that re-post some papers on their own "climate science" website/blog to bump up their Google score. People who justify their position with a count of how many "likes" they got should quit science and make a living shaking their booty next to the Kardashians.
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would scientists give a rats ass about what is being discussed on social media?
Because social media is compromising the ability of science to do its job in society.
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Sadly, peer review is seen by the general public that doesn't much understand the scientific method as a fancy way of earning likes. That's the sad reality we're living in.
So, they blinded me with Science? (Score:3)
Wrong, wrong, wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
"It is debatable whether social media platforms that are designed to monetize outrage and disagreement among users are the most productive channel for convincing skeptical publics that settled science about climate change or vaccines is not up for debate."
Anyone who can even suggest that "settled science... is not up for debate" is not a scientist, and either fails entirely to understand science or is deliberately trying to misrepresent it.
Science is all about debate, and no scientific theory is ever above challenge.
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"Debate" has no place in science. Science *is* all about challenging the status quo, but with data and empirical models, not rhetoric. The closest way "debate" has any relevance to science is the use of "thought experiments," but really those are at the core mathematical evaluation of some model or theory in a parameter space without experimental data.
You can challenge a theory or model by producing conflicting data or mathematically demonstrating that the model has errors or omissions. You can challenge
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>
Science is all about debate, and no scientific theory is ever above challenge.
A challenge is not simply saying "I disagree". A challenge is showing reproducible evidence to the contrary.
It's the algorithm, not social media (Score:3)
It's not social media, it's the algorithm that attempts to only show people content that they'll "engage" with. Sure, the summary says as much, but I really disagree with the idea that creating open spaces for discussion is the problem or that these filtering algorithms are inherent to social media.
The problem isn't that people are allowed to post their views online, the problem is that the algorithm is designed only to show the views that generate the most "engagement" and those tends to be the ones that are the most inflammatory - even if correct. Instead of getting well reasoned debated, debate is limited to those who can post the most "clickbait" comments.
Get rid of these filtering algorithms or change the way they work (for example, with a system like Slashdot's moderation system), and you can move from a system that promotes flamebait to one that promotes reasonable discussion.
But that's not going to happen because that's not where the money is. Which pairs well with the previous story of Google killing their business version of Google+ - there's no easy money to be made in a platform that promotes actual communication. Everyone's given up and let Facebook take over. (Or, I suppose, any time anyone starts competing with Facebook, Facebook buys the company.)
But as Facebook's recent losses show, eternal outrage isn't a sustainable model. People are burning out of outrage-based social media.
Unfortunately I don't really have a lot of hope that things will be allowed to improve. It's not just that there's not a lot of money in allowing open communication, there's not a lot of power in it. Even if it costs them money, I don't see Facebook being willing to give up the power that controlling what people are allowed to see gives them. And even if a competitor comes to take Facebook's place, it too will eventually be corrupted to control what people are allowed to see.
Also at odds with science: (Score:2)
Too bad (Score:2)
This will hang some social media folks up (Score:2)
A huge portion of the average readers will stop at this:
and then start arguing about gay rights on one side and "we don't need no queers here" on the other.
Scientists need to be less jargony, use more everyday words in their papers. Actually, in the tech sector in general, people pump up their wordsmithing thinking jargon makes the work sound better when it just makes it hard to understand. I get this, but they could have phrased it better, like "social media algorithms preferential
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I agree to a certain extent. Sure, if you are writing a paper that you believe will only ever be read by your peers that have the same training and background as you, jargon away. But, as any writing class or book or training will tell you, public writing needs to be written so your average school kid can read it because people will either misunderstand your jargon, or just flat-out give up if they can't make sense of it quickly. Especially now, where it should be easier than ever to look up definitions,
Small wonder (Score:2)
It's where stupid people hang out who can't distract themselves.
Can't watch football all day long.
Social media (Score:2)
Isn't just at odds with science, it's at odds with humanity.
Well, yes (Score:2)
Social media is
- Who screams loudest _or_
- Who is posturing best _or_
- Who does the best appeal to emotion
In addition there are tons of people that can only think in absolutes like yes/no, miracle/worthless, for/against, etc. because they have hypeified their thinking and thereby completely broken it. The real world is shades of grey, uncertainty, unknown things, statistics and "it depends". These people cannot even recognize actual facts because there is no space in their world-model for things that ar
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Exactly. The biggest problem is that the vast majority of people are absolutely incapable of thinking in a way that isn't binary, and when you present a probability or uncertainty to these people they just can't understand. It's like you trying to explain colors to someone who only sees in black and white.
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Where are my mod points when I really need them...
Thanks, the sentiment is appreciated nonetheless.
Exactly. The biggest problem is that the vast majority of people are absolutely incapable of thinking in a way that isn't binary, and when you present a probability or uncertainty to these people they just can't understand. It's like you trying to explain colors to someone who only sees in black and white.
Indeed. Also very frequently observable here on Slashdot. It is like these people have immunized themselves against seeing how things actually work and what is actually happening. And some of them build the most complex "arguments" on basically hot air and believe that gives them validity. Nicely shows that there are a lot of really dumb people with high intelligence. Intelligence is merely a tool, you still have to understand how to use it competently. Build
Same as the change to the News decades ago (Score:2)
Climate change is not settled science (Score:2)
For the simple reason that the scientists do not fully understand the dynamics of climate. Within the last week, slashdot had an article about the lack of understanding of various facets of climate models.
Not up for debate? (Score:2)
Social media is the freak of the week .... (Score:2)
Since I woke up this morning, this makes the third article I've seen about the ills of social media. (Another article was enumerating all of the signs you suffer from an addiction to it and what you should do to break the habit.)
To me, all of this "research" that social media is at odds with science is ridiculous. It's just a case of more researchers trying to gain some notoriety by researching the obvious. I mean, yes - if you design a social media platform so it curates the content and tries to use any
So *who* exactly cares about real science? (Score:3)
When it comes to contentious political issues, really nobody cares much about actual science.
The democrat states are now rolling back covid restrictions, in a sort of preference cascade. "The science" hasn't changed from like two weeks ago, when if you didn't want masks everywhere you were a murderous science denier. The only thing that has changed is the party line.
You could have been disappeared off social media for "disinformation" a week ago, just for saying what Dem pols are saying this week.
So is socialism (Score:2)
Just sayin'. Oh, and in case you were clueless, political science is not science either.
If it wasn't social media it would be telegram (Score:2)
So engagement algorithms cause people to self segregate with people with similar ill founded opinions. You know what does too, any non censored communication platform which allows them to self segregate, including Internet itself.
Only government censorship or ideologically based deplatforming by private oligopolys and banning P2P (Peon to Peon) internet can keep the chud choir from preaching to the chud choir. In that respect the lack of P2P on mobile makes their totalitarian dreams a little easier, just ne
I figured out the solution! (Score:2)
not just (Score:2)
Not just social media. The root of the problem is ignoramus journalists.
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That, and media owners who want it the way they want it. You know, like Faux Noise....
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Content should be value based, not objective (Score:2)
Which means it isn't scientific to talk about integrity, meaning, devotion, etc.
It should be the opposite way around:
We should do science on the basis of our ideals to support our ideals.
Re:People are saying... (Score:5, Funny)
I come to slashdot just to hear the armchair "scientists" tell me why the real scientists are doing everything wrong.
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I come to slashdot just to hear the armchair "scientists" tell me why the real scientists are doing everything wrong.
Though, based on the demographics of the people on this site - are you sure that it's JUST the "armchair" scientists?
Secondly, what makes one person more sciency than another. Is it training and education? Is it where you were trained? What you were trained in? What is the objective measure? Because without these baselines, all you have left is an ad-hominem attack on "everyone who disagrees" because hell I don't know why you'd make the argument.
Real people with real expertise have issues with the way
Re:People are saying... (Score:5, Insightful)
I come to slashdot just to hear the armchair "scientists" tell me why the real scientists are doing everything wrong.
Though, based on the demographics of the people on this site - are you sure that it's JUST the "armchair" scientists? Secondly, what makes one person more sciency than another. Is it training and education? Is it where you were trained? What you were trained in? What is the objective measure? Because without these baselines, all you have left is an ad-hominem attack on "everyone who disagrees" because hell I don't know why you'd make the argument. Real people with real expertise have issues with the way model driven science makes claims and dresses them up as fact. A lot of the complaints about the methodologies being used are more about the METHODOLOGIES and less about the outcomes. There is a reason why the study of science as a field is technically a branch of Philosophy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemology) ...
TLDR; Science is a big tent activity. Everyone is welcome.
I have more of a problem with the way science is reported than I do with the methodologies of most scientists. Science tests theories, sees results that seem positive, and tell a reporter something along the lines of, "we've tested this and found such and such to give us the results we expected. We're awaiting other people running the same test to see if they can duplicate our results."
Then said reporter spouts off in an article that "science says such and such is 100% true."
Then, months later, when said scientist speaks with the reporter again and says that others were unable to duplicate their result so they are refining their theory, and the reporter says that in an article, you get the armchair wannabes flipping their shit and saying that science is all lies!
Science isn't religion. But way too many people treat it like it is.
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And then people read the bad journalism and say "wow, scientists are stupid!" This happens on Slashdot as well as social media. This used to be a site for relatively smart and logical people but now it seems we're all just as easily swayed by emotions as anyone. Unless these are all outside sock puppet trolls and only three of us are real?
Re: People are saying... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:People are saying... (Score:5, Insightful)
The ones that you read are not scientists, as it's clear most never read more than the title, and most of the rest never finished the summary, and the one person who looked up the references and commented on it gets downvoted. Most here are engineers, which an inflated sense of thinking that they know everything, and that their "common sense" is better than any government funded study. There's an attitude that many have that one must never change their mind or opinions, ever. And this attitude is ruining slashdot, and science, and politics, and world peace, and is possibly the built-in kill switch for the human race.
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I come to slashdot just to hear the armchair "scientists" tell me why the real scientists are doing everything wrong.
Ah, yes. _Those_ people. One of the amusements I get here is to throw in some well established scientific facts in a slightly off manner and then see all the morons utterly disgrace themselves.
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Well that's because all the data they need to know to form an opinion is contained with the Slashdot story title.
"Scientists find new evidence that what your Kindergarten teacher taught you is wrong!" will spark a flurry of flame posts.
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Ah yes, the old Dear Leader argument. Seed some forums with your point of view and then claim "people are saying". Very good. You get your gold star.
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People are saying that Honey Boo Boo is a shoo-in for the next Republican presidential nominee.
*makes note in journal that the experiment has started*
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Really? So, none of them are online, because science built it, and none of them are on annoyaphones, because science built that, and none of them wear glasses, or drive cars, or....
Right?
Re:People are saying... (Score:4, Insightful)
social media in its current form may well be fundamentally broken for the purposes of presenting and disseminating facts and reason
No shit, Sherlock.
Five minutes of actual Facebook use will tell you what it's for. It's not for disseminating facts and reason and never was.
Re: People are saying... (Score:3)
Science isn't an entity, or Truth(tm). Science is a specific process.
This is what most (non-scientists) don't realize.
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All those rich scientists? I'd love to get in on the grift. Let me know where to apply and I'll put the down payment on that Lambo today!
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"Americans For Prosperity", the largest advocacy group of the Koch Brothers does not disclose their funding amounts but even what we do know is it has a larger budget than all those "silly" programs they are dishonestly lambasting combined (all those grants added up to $12 million or 0.00027% of the federal budget in one year, and they were all in different years)
Frankly I find "hamster cage matches" a better use of money than astroturfing campaigns against climate change and unions, but that's just my opin
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Sure, point out a rich scientist and take some photos, they'll be very rare. These grants don't make you rich, the grants have strings attached and must be used for paying your grad students, assistants, buying equipment, etc. If you want money you don't get NSF grants, you go to work for private industry so you can write papers saying that smoking cures cancer.
If you are basing your facts on "americansforprosperity.org" then you might want to find a more rational site not focused on political clickbait.
Re:The Corrupt Game of Cards. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Wait, wait, wait. Between researchers and social media company executives, it's the researchers you're calling greedy? Really?
Yes, really. It's called context as it relates to the world today, and I'm specifically speaking of the research and science related to the Medical Industrial Complex and particularly Big Pharma. Pfizers greed has been around a hell of a lot longer than Facebook, regardless of who's richer today.
And Big Pharma's impact on what is most precious to you and every other human on this planet (your life) is a hell of a lot bigger than social media. Speaking of addiction, 100,000 lives have been lost in the US
Re: The Corrupt Game of Cards. (Score:2)
The crackdown on pill mills made the situation worse. With pill mills your dope was a known quantity, now your dope will contain an unknown quantity of fentanyl.
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The crackdown on pill mills made the situation worse. With pill mills your dope was a known quantity, now your dope will contain an unknown quantity of fentanyl.
Prescription deaths still account for the majority, no matter now many times the MSM will try and parrot an alternative narrative to protect Pharma profits.
And to be frank...depression, lockdowns, stress, COVID restrictions, open borders, and promoting crime by reducing it to an insurance company's problem, are ALL reasons the situation is worse.
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You know that not all researchers are employed or paid by drug companies, right?
You know that context matters, right? It's 2022, not 2015. "Research" has been largely captured and prioritized around COVID for a while now, following the billions that have been paid into it.
And we now starting to see why those drug companies are wanting to take fifty years to release their "research".
https://www.ronjohnson.senate.... [senate.gov]
And quite frankly, outside of "researching" where our next war will be, most other research pales in comparison when you look at impact.
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Researchers answer to Greed? Really? You expect to be a researcher and get rich? If so, you should pick the wrong profession. The only ones getting rich off Government, is the crew getting rich off politics and the Beltway Bandits created by Saint Reagan.
Re:The Corrupt Game of Cards. (Score:4, Informative)
That whole letter from Johnson is based on debunked bad data. The 2021 numbers were correct, but there was a database issue and the numbers for 2016-2020 only included a tiny fraction of diagnoses. Basically ALL diagnoses of every kind were appearing to be up because a large amount of data was missing. If the vaccine were causing large cases of issues, they would be specific and targeted, not ALL diagnoses.
Johnson's later letters complained that the DoD responded to the media first and further complained that they took the bad data offline rather than preserve the bad data - and accused them of trying to manipulate. Even though the DMSS (the internal, non-public facing system) clearly showed more diagnoses of every kind during that range. There are a lot of legitimate people with access to that system. If this were anything other than a true error correction, there are a lot of people in a position to verify that.
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And fail. Seriously. Have you _looked_ at social media with your eyes open lately?
Sure, some scientists are corrupt. But whole scientific fields rarely are.
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Sure, some scientists are corrupt. But whole scientific fields rarely are.
The room in the video below, represents those who have had their careers massively impacted by the "scientific" field representing US COVID treatment.
You'll notice it's a rather small room as compared to the rest of the fucking community that seeks to discredit and destroy them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
And here is the letter that details why this meeting was necessary.
https://www.ronjohnson.senate.... [senate.gov]
I'd suggest you read the letter first. Seems we're starting to understand why Pfizer wants
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"Researchers Warn That Social Media May Be 'Fundamentally at Odds' With Science"
Cute play.
Citizens Know that Researchers Are 'Fundamentally at Odds' With Your Well-Being, Because They Answer To Greed and Government.
I see your Theory, and raise you a Straight Fact.
Nobody is going to take you seriously as an objectivist alpha-male and reputable conspiracy theorist unless you work the words 'false flag' into all of your comments.
Okay.. how about...
false flag Citizens Know that false flag Researchers Are 'Fundamentally at Odds' With Your Well-Being, Because They Answer To false flag Greed and false flag Governments.
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There's a red flag for you, especially since what they mean is that the most commonly accepted interpretation of some set of the available data is beyond being challenged. Because, you know, paradigm shifts are just theoretical, they never actually happen. I mean, its settled, can't possibly change, and anyone holding a contrary opinion is not a real scientist, because real scientists always go with the crowd.
I thought it was that real scientists could tell what was true because it is obvious based on the arguments made by everyone else. Anyone who disagrees has an "Agenda" or is "Paid Off" even if the disagreement is about minor portions of the "Science"...
Of course, I could be wrong...
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You misunderstand. "Settled Science" is merely Science that needs extraordinary evidence to the contrary to re-open the investigation. Should that extraordinary evidence become available, this "Settled Science" will be revisited. Any real scientist understands that. Non-experts often do not, as your example shows. But there is the thing: This happens so rarely that it is not sane to expect it to happen and very often when it happens it is just some details that get adjusted or some extreme conditions where
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Anyone saying that science of X is not up for debate is at best being unscientific.
Nah that's bullshit. Globe earthism isn't up for debate. Neither is perpetual motion.
So yes, climate science is also up for debate,
In no practical universe do randos on the internet have something useful in terms of data, science or simulation to add to the debate.
Re:Science is a debate (Score:4)
Globe earthism isn't up for debate.
“The earth isn’t a sphere, it resembles an oblate spheroid but upon close examination has fine surface detail” is a legitimate debate. Proving your own flat earth theory wrong with scientific experiments and then bending over backward to force observation into an obviously false and preconceived narrative is demonstrating a lack of understanding of what’s real on a level where accidental injury or fatalities become likely.
Neither is perpetual motion.
“Perpetual motion being impossible is only statistically true on human scales while special relativity does not conserve energy and on the largest scales even defining what constitutes energy conservation is not straightforward. Conservation of energy is therefore not a universal law” is where the debate is. A trashy junk project obviously demonstrating a fundamental lack of engineering first principles where even the batteries are poorly hidden claiming to be an infinite source of energy that’s being held back from the world in a grand conspiracy demonstrates someone needs professional help in more ways than just one.
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âoeThe earth isnâ(TM)t a sphere, it resembles an oblate spheroid but upon close examination has fine surface detailâ is a legitimate debate
I don't see how that's even a debate. Globe earthism (a name I made up but I am 100% sure is not original as a humorous opposite to flat earthism) isn't about the earth being a perfect sphere. And... your statement is demonstrably undeniably true, there's nothing to debate there.
Up for debate would maybe be some of the finer decimal digits of the spherical
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In no practical universe do randos on the internet have something useful in terms of data, science or simulation to add to the debate.
Climate measurements are available as open data sets.
The methodologies for the data collections are documented.
How Climate simulations are constructed is published and reproducible
General access to high powered computing is available to anyone anywhere through server farms that rent time
Knowledge of Epistemology and Logic and the structure of an argument is not restricted to people not on the internet (though if we restricted to only people not on the internet that would be an interesting argument in
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Climate measurements[...]
All true.
Randomness is in some ways a great way to evaluate data. It is literally the basis for statistics.
A bunch of random internet weirdos with an axe to grind is a different meaning of the word random. They are not IID, for example.
This is true because everyone is a "rando" on the internet.
And that's where your reasoning falls down.
Someone who has a clue will almost certainly have a paper trail demonstrating that (e.g. publications in climate science for example), so not a rando
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You are missing the point. No science is up for debate because, last time I checked, debate was not part of the scientific method. Mentioning debate one way or another is unscientific.
Re:Science is a debate (Score:5, Insightful)
You're falling for the 1% paradox.
If 1% disagrees with something, then it can't possibly be true.
There are huge swaths of 'climate science' that really, really aren't up for debate anymore.
Burning fossil fuels releases CO2 and CO2 is a greenhouse gas. That's not up for debate, for instance.
What *is* up for debate has nothing to do with science, and everything with public policy. But scaremongers love to equate that to 'bad science'.
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You're falling for the 1% paradox.
If 1% disagrees with something, then it can't possibly be true.
There are huge swaths of 'climate science' that really, really aren't up for debate anymore.
Burning fossil fuels releases CO2 and CO2 is a greenhouse gas. That's not up for debate, for instance.
What *is* up for debate has nothing to do with science, and everything with public policy. But scaremongers love to equate that to 'bad science'.
\ We have known and postulated of the effects of greenhouse gasses for over 200 years. Originally there were fewer, now there are more. Scientific pursuits are not about becoming "Settled"- they are about becoming more refined. Truth comes in purity, sediment is never pure and usually smells. Like a lot of the FUD sales surrounding AGW. Is AGW a problem, yes. Are the solutions being advocated for a real solution? Nope. Real solutions are way more important than sound bytes and profits. Most of what we
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Considering popular opinion in determining the likely truth is a cognitive shortcut that allows us to bypass rigors of following scientific method. It is NOT by itself part of scientific method.
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The highest level in Science is Theory. A law is an observation. A theory is a model that explains the observation.
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Nope. Because you have no clue what you are talking about. The full thing actually is "is not up for debate unless extraordinary evidence to the contrary becomes available". Every actual scientist understands that. You do not.
Now, is it possible that extraordinary evidence will become available for Climate Science? Yes. Is it likely? Not at all. Extraordinary evidence is a very rare thing indeed in Science. There are a few cases were it was found, but not many. And in most of these cases the original models
Re:Science is a debate (Score:5, Insightful)
So yes, climate science is also up for debate, IF someone can come up with the new data that breaks existing models OR come up with a new model that better fits existing data.
Considering climate science has a long history of new data breaking the model on the side of it’s worse than expected, it’s paralleling Moore’s law where you go a decade and the new data shows it’s twice as bad as we previously thought. Almost as if continuing to ignore the problem while exponentially making it worse has some kind of consequences.
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The science is up for new data, not for debate. Debate and data have skewed from each other in social media spheres.