Facts Matter

I debate things on the net with a couple of conservatives. Mostly to keep up my language skills. I need to read and write in two languages. It is not worth my time otherwise. A couple of these conservatives actually are pretty good with life in general, so I can talk to them about practical matters.

These people see things through politics. Therefore science, global warming, EPA and vaccinations, those are things corrupted by the government, according to them. They might understand electrician work and auto repair, but those are things you can confirm with your own hands.

Looking a little deeper into this, it is actually a way of thinking about everything for these three or four guys, none of whom ever did research of any sort, science or otherwise. One is a businessman. Looking at a news item, the business person looks at it as a way to make profit. He wants to buy, sell invest. The product could be highly technical. If the work is about a technical innovation or a solution that requires R&D, the person is not interested.

They can vote, that is clear, but they cannot influence the outcome or the applications of science and technology in any way. Environmental issues only concern them if they can "feel" them. (A rise in temperature of 1C over 100 years cannot be felt by a person. Only a slight increase of warm days in your area). A cell phone is only interesting as a tool and looking at best plans for X number of people in Y areas. The device is looked at for price, features and is picked the next time by trial and error. Does the Samsung have a better battery, and do I need to bother learning to use it after the iPhone?

The way the phone works, the way the internet works, all that is irrelevant. Cost is all. If he is not going to write or mess with settings on software, pick the easiest software to use.

Global warming? It's not warmer here, I am cold right now. The ice caps have not melted yet. There is no desire to understand. Because politicians are involved. They fix all with taxes. No tax for me, don't spend my money investing in wind. There is plenty of coal. Also he read an article where the earth was cooling. Plus we were going to run out of gas. But these did not happen! Science was wrong! In this sort of ”casual” interest in matters of science, the actual facts are buried and only the headlines stay in memory. The TRUTH that the layman demands of science is not a foolproof truth, but often a well developed field has those truths. A lesser field, like climate science in 1975, had merely good guesses. It was in fact one paper that claimed an ice age coming. The main body of workers in the field did not see it as a reliable paper. The evidence was very little.

People have their areas of expertise where they act with confidence. Science only matters as a tool. The guy above, the lawyer, the local head of the Fed Ex unit. They have as little interest in science as possible. Possibly they will read a few articles if a health issue comes up. Even there, the wins and losses are calculated. Do I want to pay for dental implants or just get dentures?

Though they have slightly more life experience, their attitude to things they cannot influence is no different from teens in high school asking "why do I need to know that?" Modern life as consumers is pretty much that. After you have kids, daily chores are more important to do than teach your kid about simultaneous equations or ideal gas laws. even if you did remember them from high school. I rarely had use for the ideal gas law in the chemical industry, but I was still able to teach it to one teen at the age of 15-16. It is because it was within my expertise. Still, even in science, we know more and more about less and less. There are few generalists left. The high school science teacher may be one.

In the same manner as science, these people also reject all of sociology. It is of no interest to them to learn about gun laws, bike traffic in Amsterdam or any item they are unlikely to deal with personally. Politics outside of our country does not exist. Foreigners are only noted for trouble caused. All data collected with government funding is "fake" to many a layman. But for sure to all four of my common men.

Back to the science. I can't really imagine politics smearing any real science. I had two colleagues that continuously argued pretty much about everything. That did not prevent them writing a paper together on research that we all were assigned to do at the time.

If you still insist that science is wrong, there is a book you can look at, which does sort out the areas where science has been less than certain and sometimes wrong:

"Ben Goldacre has made a point of exposing quack doctors and nutritionists, bogus credentialing programs, and biased scientific studies. He has also taken the media to task for its willingness to throw facts and proof out the window."  Book: 

Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks published 2010 by Ben Goldacre.