Scientists Believe. . .
Why do most people take scientists' beliefs on faith? If a news story says "Scientists believe _____," everyone seems to think that _____ is indisputable truth.
But why? A scientist is supposed to test a hypothesis and prove something. Quite often there is a margin of error or a shadow of doubt in the answer, but it still supposed to be just the facts.
When scientists start spouting beliefs, they are no longer speaking as scientists. They are then speaking as just regular human beings. True, they may know more about one particular subject than the vast majority of the population, but that doesn't turn their beliefs into facts.
If it's speculation and "we think this may be the case," the rest of us shouldn't nod and use it as gospel. Anybody can speculate. Anybody can say what they believe. A scientist can collect data and prove the laws of the universe.
If you're willing to doubt God, shouldn't you be willing to doubt scientists?
3 comments:
Sure.. scientists make mistakes and unfounded conclusions all the time. But generally, they have information to back up their beliefs, and most of the time their speculations are helpful in some way.
If there was no speculation there would be no conclusions.
right?
But sometimes their beliefs get in the way between the facts and what their results. They may know a lot of information, but if they (subconsciously/consciously) disregard data because it doesn't fit their world view, what good is the information? Why should we belive them if they hide data from the general population?
Oh, everybody's out to prove something.
When I posted this, I was thinking about Big issues like Evolution of Species and Humankind's Affect on Global Climate. I tried to generalize, but I don't think it worked. People (scientists included) don't have emotional stakes in little issues.
On Big issues, though, I still believe (-; that scientists' predispositions affect how they view their data. Or whether they get published or not.
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