[alexose]

Science is not conducted through public debate. Full stop. There's a reason why it's peer review, and not talk show host review.

During COVID, most everybody was operating from an incomplete data set. Public officials were wrong about some things. You can choose to see this as a conspiracy set up by big pharma, or you can see it as imperfect people doing what they could to mitigate a public health crisis.

And yes, critique the peer review process all you want. It's flawed in many ways. But this "it's us versus science" narrative is extremely, insidiously damaging to society at large. It only serves powerful people who benefit from whipping an audience into a frenzy to buy their shitty supplements or bumper stickers or whatever.

[wakawaka28]

>Science is not conducted through public debate. Full stop. There's a reason why it's peer review, and not talk show host review.

You're only saying that because you happen to disagree with what is being said. Full stop.

[KaiserPro]

The scientific principle is based on proving thing by experimentation.

it is empirical that means that you should be able to re-produce the results of a thing or assertion by following the details in a paper.

The public might be able to do it themselves. But the point is, its not about who says what, its about can it be reproduced.

scientist "A" says that the sky is blue because of "x". devises an experiment to prove that. writes up the experiment, publishes it, asserts that the sky is blue because of x, and that the experiment proves this.

Scientist "B" says it bollocks, reproduces the experiment, but also extends the experiment to show that the data also says that the sky is green. Paper is published with data and method.

The process repeats until a consensus is reached where everyone can reproduce the data, and no one can disprove the hypothesis that the sky is blue because of x.

None of that requires asserting bollocks on a chat show. Sure science outreach is great, but its not _really_ part of the method.

[gadders]

During the pandemic, though, we had scientists asserting that various physical methods would stop the spread of the virus with no evidence to back that up (masking, keeping 6 ft away from people, previous COVID did not provide immunity, vaccines would stop the spread of COVID, etc etc).

When scientists don't follow their own method, how should the public decide on which findings to trust?

[wakawaka28]

>The scientific principle is based on proving thing by experimentation.

As documented in Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" there are periods where little progress is made because scientists get tunnel vision. It takes someone to come along and push things in a different direction, perhaps to the detriment of people with decades or lots of money sunk into a different orthodoxy, and navigating that turmoil can be challenging.

Who do you think decides which research gets funded, or published? If you go too far outside of what's acceptable to the establishment, your career is over. When there are billions of dollars on the line and your opposition can literally fund a dozen studies to "discredit" your take, it doesn't matter if your results can be reproduced or not. It could be many years before the truth comes out, if it ever does.

>None of that requires asserting bollocks on a chat show. Sure science outreach is great, but its not _really_ part of the method.

If you want to get funding for research then sometimes it is necessary to engage the public. If you hope to buck the well-monied establishment with hot takes, you might even need legal support. Besides that it's just interesting to hear what people are working on. I think people like to know what scientists think, and it gets boring to hear just a single opinion about things nonstop.

[borski]

Er, no… that’s literally just the truth. Science is not done as a public debate. That’s politics.

Science doesn’t “vote.”

[wakawaka28]

Actually, peer review journals are public debate. The much-applauded "consensus" is essentially voting. If you follow the money you will quickly see the connection between science and politics, both internally and with the public at large.

[betenoire]

Peer review. Those words mean something, your bias is showing

[wakawaka28]

I am biased against anyone who wants to stop me or others from thinking lol. Yes, "peer review" means something. It means that the criteria to get published is that some approved reviewers must accept the results. No more, no less. Anyone can obtain a journal article and form their own opinion about the article and its authors. This includes members of other academic fields, or the general public. Sometimes this outside scrutiny is sorely needed to address problems in the research.

If one has good results and data, their academic pedigree theoretically shouldn't matter when it comes to publication. But we know it doesn't work like that generally. The real world does not live up to our lofty ideals.