Science and People pt. 1 (by: Eugene J. Nemeth)

[genegenethedm]

Recently I was reminded about what I call "unscientific shinanigins (where's my broomstick?), which are framed as being 'science'" in my genetics class. However I believe I should save my rant about the misuse of quantitative genetics, "scientific racism (which really has very little to do with science)", and deception in the book "The Bell Curve"

Comments

[genegenethedm]

I completely agree and, honestly, who could really blame most people being ambivalent when so much information is being dumped on them? In my opinion, I can't totally blame the general public (well I could, but lets say I am more sympathetic) for a lack of scientific literacy. Obviously, the most reliable sources of scientific information are published in professional journals where it can has been critically analyzed and peer-reviewed by several creditable members of that field's community. Books, movies, news broadcasts, and other popular media mediums are not under the same critical scrutiny but reach a far greater audience. Because people grant these forms of media authority in providing news related to politics or sports, that doesn't mean they should be granted scientific authority (it seems like they sadly are though, ehh?).

I think global warming is a fantastic example. While I haven't investigated too much into it (frankly because climatology never interested me before), how many contradictory opinions have you heard about global warming in the media? A even better question, how much does the media actually talk about the science behind determining climatic changes? Isn't the argument always framed around political issues instead of science? I don't care if it is possible (and probable) that Al Gore wants to cash in on "An Inconvenient Truth" (which is funny to me, I didn't know he was a researcher lol j/k), that doesn't provide me with hard and reliable evidence about the Earth's climate. Sure, they might say "global warming doesn't exist" and provide a long list of professors and researchers that may back this argument. But what do they mean by "global warming doesn't exist"? Do they mean that human interaction has nothing to do with it or that the Earth isn't warming at a pace that people should worry about, or are temperatures not changing at all? They never really support their claims. Apart from one of my classes on climate and humanity (GEOSCI 111), I never saw a much as a graph relating to global warming or learned about the techniques of climate monitoring. Is the media telling us that Americans are too scientifically incapable that we can't even read graphs and only understand irrelevant bickering to come to a conclusion about anything in the natural world? I hope not! How many discussions in scientific journals include, "well, in addition to data collected in our experiments we also want to mention that people in opposition to our conclusions lie to promote their political agenda and makes our conclusions all the more concrete."?

I don't know about why science and religion must be at odds with one another. Does the religious community long for the Age of Enlightenment once again? lol. You are right, it i can't be good for our country both academically and culturally.

BTW, I hate the word "pseudoscience" because topics that are pseudoscience have nothing to do with science as the name may imply. Is there a better word for it other than "shinanigins"? lol