People are Not that Great at Science
So I was writing a while ago about how brilliant the scientific method is. As far as I’m concerned, one of the biggest reasons that it is brilliant is that it’s self-correcting. If you have a better explanation - according to the rules of making sure it explains the facts, and it is testable - the it’s in.
On the other hand, people are actually rubbish at science. Bear with me on this one. There are essentially two types of people, people who are passionate about a given subject, and the rest of us.
To spend your working life trying to find out why something works the way it does you need to be passionate about it. To really understand all the nuances of a problem, you need to spend a lot of time with it, something that you only do if you are passionate about it.
This would be fine, except that people who are passionate about a subject tend to have a problem simultaneously being objective about it. If you have a hypothesis, that in your opinion is correct, but you can’t quite find sufficient evidence, you’re going to have a hard time either accepting or admitting that an opposing hypothesis better explains the facts.
You might think that this wouldn’t be a problem, but it really is. Einstein famously refused to accept that quantum mechanics was valid because it involves probability. Lysenko’s dismissal of Mendelian genetics had such an influence on Soviet biology that genetics in Russia was set back by decades.
How do erroneous explanations eventually die out? It’s sometimes described as a scientific revolution, but in practice the old guard retire and die, and new scientists without the same prejudices come along to take their place as the accepted leaders - in time they too will go the way of their predecessors.
When you’re tenatiously holding on to an opinion, you aren’t always right, you might just as easily be an obstacle to progress. People are rubbish at science, but fortunately they aren’t immortal.
Eventually truth will win. That’s how science works.
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“How do erroneous explanations eventually die out? It’s sometimes described as a scientific revolution, but in practice the old guard retire and die, and new scientists without the same prejudices come along to take their place as the accepted leaders”
This occurs less than is thought. In the case of Plate Tectonics it was actually a case of the evidence convincing people. I recall a quote about it that in many cases some geoscientist would say to himself “this continental drift stuff is nonsense & I’ll prove it with the data from my specialty” then he would look carefully for evidence against drift & find his data was *better* explained by contenental drift/plate tectonics & become a convert.
JB MSc geophysics
But one scientist’s opinion - even someone like Einstein - isn’t enough to sway public opinion, unless the media is involved. At least in the US, where CNN et al is the gospel.
Take the fat debate - the consensus has always been that fat is *not* bad. But one person pushed the agenda, the media came on board, and voila government policy recommending you not eat fat ever. Which has, of course, changed, because the media is finally getting the point.