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by wutbrodo 3243 days ago
I have some pretty ironclad faith in the scientific method, but far less so in the scientific establishment. Don't get me wrong, I don't think scientists are doing a bad job and don't think I could do any better as an individual if I were a scientist. But most people's understanding of "science" goes through tons of filters that hurt its quality: statistical illiteracy among scientists, messed-up incentives in the publishing process, political pressure within research, skew in what the media is incentivized to cover, the obscene amount of dishonesty and incompetence in science reporting, etc etc.

I've yet to meet someone with such faith in science whose understanding of what "science" is goes beyond pop-science articles and things that all of their friends "know" are scientific fact.