Opinion What's the deal with layman(s) questioning the credentials and scientific ability of actual experts?

[Cajun]

I admit to confirmation bias on this topic, but I still have to say it makes a very convincing aregument. As you read, I suggest you bear in mind the humoungous reach of conservative talk radio.

Edit: and I wrote this post before I chose to "show ignored content", FTR.

No worries man. Had to Google FTR. My brain is working half speed today or I'm too old.... or both

 

[Osculater]

@Cajun don't bother with that study. it's not even a study, it's an editorial about muh conservatives are bad. Andy here is excited about it because his IQ is around 85 and that's before he shits his pants, so most of the time it's lower than 85. You should never, ever, take science recommendations from this dipshit, and i'm being very serious. there's not one "muh conservatives bad" post that he doesn't wag his tail at, like the pet of that Pavlov fella. he doesn't have synapses to spare for introspection or evaluation.

But it is an essay with citations though

 

[Cajun]

But it is an essay with citations though

Yeah it's a scientific article. The journal is weak on impact factor (1.7). Will look up some of the references though if there are key points drawn from one.

 

[evergreenrider]

They think they can lie, cheat, murder, steal, and god will forgive them!

As long as it's done underground away from the gaze of the Lord right?

 

[Berserker13]

wow, it's totally not mental illness

 

[bandicoot]

Lol @ micro plastics. Pretty sure those shits are small and I'm big, I'll beat the shit out of those little pussy ass bitches.

 

[Andy Capp]

Yeah it's a scientific article. The journal is weak on impact factor (1.7). Will look up some of the references though if there are key points drawn from one.

By the way, please elaborate on "impact factor" and what sort of scale a 1.7 fits into, e.g. is it out of 10, logarithmic, etc.?

 

[Brampton_Boy]

Yeah it's a scientific article. The journal is weak on impact factor (1.7). Will look up some of the references though if there are key points drawn from one.

Depending on the subject area, 1.7 isn't necessarily bad.

Also, impact factor is increasingly becoming a less reliable predictor of quality research. MDPI and the pay to play model of publication fucked up the system. Open source lead to tons of citations, but they basically accept any publication willing to pay the 1800 Euro fee

 

[gatchaman]

If you can find a single example (and I have done dozens of television interviews) where I claim to be a climate change expert, I will give you $100. At most, I can comment on the role that diversion and circular systems can play in potentially mitigating against the environmental footprint of virgin production, but I am not a climate scientist.

For the record, I actually run Canada's largest university lab devoted to waste management research, and a big part of what we do is conducting life cycle analysis for large CPG companies to identify the most sustainable materials. Here is something that might surprise you - climate mitigation and sustainability are not the same thing, and people should not conflate the two.

Do you have the expertise to back up this statement of yours on TV?: "The transition to EVs is absolutely necessary in the fight against climate change."

 

[Cajun]

Depending on the subject area, 1.7 isn't necessarily bad.

Also, impact factor is increasingly becoming a less reliable predictor of quality research. MDPI and the pay to play model of publication fucked up the system. Open source lead to tons of citations, but they basically accept any publication willing to pay the 1800 Euro fee

Its still as good as there is. I mean there has always been some politics involved in getting into good journals. Higest I ever got was around 9.8. Picking reviewers that are buds etc. That politics has been around. But overall still the gauge. 1.7 is ok I guess if there is some obscure area that noone covers. I still need to read the article.

 

[ssBaldy]

Probably because there are a lot of arrogant idiots among the public, but also because many scientists are indeed paid shills, especially of those who work with environmental problems.
Remember how many times they said we'd run out of oil in 10 years, how holes in the ozone layer are gonna kill us all, etc, etc?

It certainly warrants some amount of scepticism, which idiots take to the extreme and piss you off during your talks.

 

[Phlog]

I can imagine with AI's advancements you will be hearing a lot more along these lines in the future. From what I've been seeing it does make me wonder if the age of experts is coming to an end, to be replaced by AI computers. Of late I've been seeing lawyer expert work quickly being replaced by AI output. I can imagine other University degree learnings will see similar. Along these lines ~

Everyone is Cheating in College Because College is Worthless​

Academia dumbed itself down so much that AI can easily replace it.​

https://www.frontpagemag.com/everyone-is-cheating-in-college-because-college-is-worthless/


A good way to look at generative AI-produced text or art is that they’re low-quality limitations of the real thing made by machines to fool people. (Like the header here.) (Ditto for AI-generated research, which just consumes low-quality internet content and feeds back what people want it to tell them.) In other words, AI content is there to fool people and it works only to the extent that people are willing to be fooled by low-quality content.

So what does that say about the problem of AI cheating in school?

Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College: ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project. – New York Magazine


There’s plenty more like that, but you get the idea. Some of it is probably exaggerated, but much of it is also true. Students routinely rely on AI. They think less and just use a series of AI tools to move through the process. This makes grades increasingly worthless, but let’s face it, much of what they were tasked with doing was worthless.

Assigning AI to take on “Indigenous studies, law, English, and a ‘hippie farming class'” is only so much of a loss. Academia, even before it went fully woke, was based heavily on an automation of knowledge rather than on genuine learning or engagement with the material. Wokeness just finished the job by turning every class into an exercise in Marxism-Leninism where the goal was to repeat dogma in exactly the right terms while adding a dose of ‘personal insight’ into the mix. AI can automate the process better than any human being can.

AI-generated content fools people who expect low-quality repetition of what they want. That’s what academia has become. None of this prepares the students doing this for careers doing anything meaningful or having the skills to solve any problems that AI can’t solve for them, but how many college-level jobs expect that anyway?

Academia dumbed itself down so much that AI can easily replace it.

I think it's more the constraints of money spent Vs costs of education lead to standards being broadly at one level. Then tools come along that reduce the cost and the content can advance to take into account deeper knowledge.

 

[BForrester]

Only in the last few years as a way to try to deny biology.

If you want to pull that shit then admit that sports and other things such was divided by biology this includes title IV. Which is still how it is divided or should be.

And I agree with that. I don't deny biology. If you were born with XY you're male and shouldn't be competing against XX in sports. I simply don't care whether someone born male wants to be treated as a woman or vice versa; it has zero impact on my life.

 

[I Am Legion]

One issue is that you can't even get consensus amongst the scientific community itself. Add in the things we have found out science has been wrong about in the past. Take Nutrition. We flip flop every few years. Fats are bad. Fats are good. What you find out is often times, things are made to look a certain way due to profitability. Chicken folks fund research that shows red meat is bad etc. People like Fauci didn't help. "There was no science behind it". And yes, the internet has created know it alls that are so easily brainwashed.

 

[oldshadow]

And I agree with that. I don't deny biology. If you were born with XY you're male and shouldn't be competing against XX in sports. I simply don't care whether someone born male wants to be treated as a woman or vice versa; it has zero impact on my life.

As long as they respect biological women's private spaces then there is no problem. Well as long as they don't demand others to believe what they believe.

 

[Cajun]

By the way, please elaborate on "impact factor" and what sort of scale a 1.7 fits into, e.g. is it out of 10, logarithmic, etc.?

It's a relative gauge of the importance of a journal that the article is published . It tends to be a relative gauge of how well an article has been done in terms of proving it'sl hypothesis. It's determined by the number of citations made to that journal. For instance the New England Journal of Medicine which you've heard of will have a very high ranking and is one of the highest clinical journals at 95. Many are between 0 and 1. For basic sciences Nature and Science are two at the top. Nature is around 55. I published at around 9.8 which is good but not at the level of those mentioned. If you are first or last author in one of those it will make your career.

If you have a scientific article that is inconclusive, incomplete or has a lot of holes in it you will normally fall into a low tier Journal or may not get accepted. These articles are peer-reviewed by others. As Brampton pointed out, some subjects are obscure and of course political journals are not my area of expertise. And they are always some political things where you have colleagues that will pick their friends for reviewers.

 

[chardog]

there are subjective/soft sciences and there are hard sciences, which side are you on?

the earth was once considered the center of the universe.

 

[degoj99]

(1) Type I errors (e.g., research funded by pharma companies is more favorable to their drugs vs. non-corporate sponsored research).

(2) Type II errors.

(3) p hacking and related failures of replication in all branches of science (see #1 above).

(4) Scientists lying to influence public opinion getting outed (e.g., Fauci admitting he changed his advice on % of vaccinated folks needed to get to herd immunity solely as an influence tactic).

(5) Motivated reasoning.

 

[degoj99]

It's the Dunning - Kruger effect. It's becoming an epidemic amongst MAGA conservatives, and conspiracy theorists (the two aren't mutually exclusive)

Between the left claiming sex is a social construct and academic race hustlers like case below, let alone the leftist Fauci cult, it may not be the best idea to throw stones.

Professor fired for ‘faking data to prove lynching makes whites want longer sentences for blacks,’ 6 studies retracted

Florida State University criminology professor Eric Stewart made explosive claims in his research into race but has been fired because his data did not add up.

nypost.com

 

[degoj99]

I don’t think we often agree on things but this is a pretty decent summary. The ‘soft sciences’ are especially prone to capture by ideologues and end up researching and publishing trash.

While it is true that the left does publish a lot of ideologically driven trash (I linked one such discredited stream in an earlier post), on Retraction Watch 9 of the top 10 researchers in terms of number of papers that were retracted are in the hard sciences. Only Stapel, an extreme liar from psych, makes the list at #8.

The Retraction Watch Leaderboard

Who has the most retractions? Here’s our unofficial list (see notes on methodology), which we’ll update as more information comes to light: Joachim Boldt (220) See also: Editors-in-chie…

retractionwatch.com