Being more critical of modern "science"

[Lot]

I found this very interesting blog article. I thought that people here might enjoy reading it. It talks about how many modern scientists and skeptics are as skeptical as they should be. How they often only focus on easy targets like quack medicine and bigfoot, but they don't question other claims made by scientists and research doctors.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...mograms-and-war-more/?wt.mc=SA_Facebook-Share

Here are some snippets

"
So I’m a skeptic, but with a small S, not capital S. I don’t belong to skeptical societies. I don’t hang out with people who self-identify as capital-S Skeptics. Or Atheists. Or Rationalists.
When people like this get together, they become tribal. They pat each other on the back and tell each other how smart they are compared to those outside the tribe. But belonging to a tribe often makes you dumber."


" 'The Science Delusion' is common among Capital-S Skeptics. You don’t apply your skepticism equally. You are extremely critical of belief in God, ghosts, heaven, ESP, astrology, homeopathy and Bigfoot. You also attack disbelief in global warming, vaccines and genetically modified food.
These beliefs and disbeliefs deserve criticism, but they are what I call “soft targets.” That’s because, for the most part, you’re bashing people outside your tribe, who ignore you. You end up preaching to the converted.
Meanwhile, you neglect what I call hard targets. These are dubious and even harmful claims promoted by major scientists and institutions. In the rest of this talk, I’ll give you examples of hard targets from physics, medicine and biology. I’ll wrap up with a rant about war, the hardest target of all."


He goes over multiverse theory, the singularity, over medication for mental illness, and medical over testing/treating.



I'm not saying what he says is true or false (considering that I believe in giant bipedal apes, and that global warming isn't man made). I just enjoyed the article and decided to share it with people more versed in the sciences than me.

 

[ruminator]

thanks for this, I think a lot of people blindly follow scientists the way the religious follow prophets

 

[Pyropyro]

I'm quite amused how his fellow tribesmen were quick to be up in arms against him. Guess the author rustled some jimmies.

 

[Hadoblado]

This is one of those uncomfortable articles that makes me hesitate.

I can fully get behind what he's saying about Big Foot for example. I don't really know much about BF, but if he does exist, who cares? JK people would care, but BF wouldn't be solving any of the problems that are relevant now. It's getting a whole lot of media hype about nothing. It's not worth addressing and being skeptical of, because the implications for if he's real or isn't real aren't there (correct me if I'm wrong, as I said, I've never paid attention to it and don't see any implications, if there are actually some I'll take this back).

Likewise with astrology. Yes I think it's complete bunk. Yes people do pay money for this stuff, peddling this shit should probably be a crime. But, it's a small fish. People are gullible, and it's shit that astrology gurus take advantage of that, but we shouldn't be wasting the toted 'critical' side's time policing the gullible's wallets.

Homeopathy is more of a mixed bag because some of it's absolute horseshit, and some of it probably works but doesn't have enough science behind it to be pushed into the realm of medicine. If homeopathy treatments happen at a comparable frequency to established medical practice, then anyone who is critical of homeopathy needs to have payed a comparable amount of attention to established medicine. I don't know what the numbers are though, and if homeopathy takes up say, less than 10%? Being critical of established medicine would be more important.

It's kinda funny to me that the first thing I thought when reading the article was that he was trying to do too much. "Why is he bringing his views on war into this? he's diluting his message to serve another agenda". But while I do find him a little big aggressive on this front, he's kinda right. I think it's fine for Obama to not think war is coming to an end in our lifetimes. And I think his quotes about war being ingrained in the first man are merely political BS. But we have let war become a norm, and that is really fucked up. Sure it's not an easy thing to bring down, but the assumption that it is necessary is bullshit. It isn't genetic. It's political. And all universality of national politic has been conflated with human nature. There are peacemongers, they are the counterexampe to war being human nature. Sure it might be true that war is inevitable, but it's not because all humans are built to hate, and assuming the latter ensures we always assume the former without question.

Critical thought clans direct their attention at media hype. Not all that is media hyped is equally worth being critical of. The consequences of some wrongs are not nearly as bad as the consequences of others.