Academics Blame Lower Trust In Scientists On Everything But Bad Scientists – Watts Up With That?

Reposted from William M Briggs’s Substack Science Is Not The Answer

The second sentence of the abstract of a new paper about trust in scientists, which is generally high but in some places low, provides the very reason for distrust: “Public trust in science can help decision-makers act based on the best available evidence, especially during crises such as climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic.”

“Climate change” is not a crisis, and it is absurd for scientists to claim it is. The covid panic was. But only because scientists in the name of Science first created the damned bug, and then repeatedly botched its “solutions”. What rulers and Experts did to the body politic in the name of Science would make a San Francisco bathhouse habitué blush.

Incidentally, trust in scientists, they say, and not in Science. An interesting and important distinction.

The paper is “Trust in scientists and their role in society across 67 countries” by Viktoria Cologna, Naomi Oreskes, whom we have met several times, and a legion of others. We have met, and have not enjoyed meeting, Oreskes many times before.

Like the abstract, the paper itself begins in a bizarre way: “Public trust in science provides many benefits to people and society at large.”

Yes and no. Sometimes the fruits of science provide benefits, true, but sometimes they provide harms; e.g., gain-of-lethality research and nuclear bombs. Perhaps the net, at least at the date of this writing, is a benefit, but this is unclear. To be clear we’d have to have an agreed upon definition of The Good. We would have to know the purpose and meaning of life, and how our toys and machines fit into this scheme.

Which is not the purview of science. And which, in our decaying culture, our Experts, elites and rulers never discuss.

This is important because this paper, as in most minds, production of tools and toys are conflated with science. Science is the understanding of the nature of world. Controlling the world via this understanding is not science, but something else. Confusing the two leads to scientism.

Now this paper is a mess, and there is no point taking it too seriously. The ambiguity of translating the questions asked, the state and history of country-level science education and production, culture itself, and things like this mean that absolute numbers cannot be used or compared with anything close to certainty. For instance, a picture (their Fig. 1) shows Egypt (!) and India far outpacing other countries in scientist trust. Japan and Russia are near the bottom.

Then the authors say things like this: “Societies with high public trust in science dealt with the COVID19 pandemic more effectively, as citizens were more likely to comply with non-pharmaceutical COVID-19 interventions and had higher vaccine confidence.”

No they didn’t. The USA, which Followed The Science, had one of the highest crap-out rates. Sweden, which did not, did much better.

Who really knows, though, because countries reported numbers with different levels of assiduity. Complying with idiotic and vain “non-pharmaceutical” “interventions” is a definite strike against trusting scientists. Follow the arrows on the floor or die! Wear a mask standing but not sitting or die! Break the 6 foot barrier and die!

What struck me as bizarre was this:

Trust is significantly associated with attitudes towards science. We find positive relationships between people’s trust in scientists and their willingness to rely on scientific advice and thus make themselves vulnerable to scientists, the belief that science benefits people like them, and trust in scientific methods.

Make themselves vulnerable to scientists. Drips with effeminacy and toxic femininity. Same kind of stuff you see from synodalians listening and accompanying us on our spiritual journey together. Mental sugar poisoning. Vulnerable to scientists forsooth!

We also find that science-related populist attitudes—that is, beliefs that people’s common sense is superior to the expertise of scientists and scientific institutions—are associated with lower trust in scientists.

Here’s where the scientism really creeps in. Knowing how the world works does not, in any way, tell us the best and worst ways of manipulating the world. Ordinary people can often tell when they are being shafted by Vlad The Scientist Impaler. Their commonsense solutions can work better than scientist “solutions”.

The mistake the paper makes is assuming scientists’ expertise is always better than people’s. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But never always.

Think of the scientist whose bright idea it was to put lithium in water supplies to calm the indigenous populants—and make them love scientists more? Or the scientist who wants to—and I swear this is true—shrink people to make war on “climate change.”

Scientists, even PhD-bearing mathematical prodigies, can be stupid. Because of DIE and the work, that stupidity on public display increases.

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By William M Briggs · Launched 2 years ago

The philosophy of science and scientism, and putting uncertainty in its place.