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

Renard said:
Just looked it up and there was a study in the New England Journal of Medicine about microplastics allegedly causing strokes and heart attacks. Why would a material scientist think he understands medicine? Doesn't sound like that audience member was retarded at all. Even people within the same field disagree on things. What you're describing is cookie cutter stuff when discussing any subject with anyone, meaning people disagree. The difference is that you think you know everything and you assume the person you're talking to is an idiot while they may not be. Audience members at conferences are often experts themselves or involved in constellation fields. It's not a good look... for you.
Click to expand...
Allegedly
 
- In public security you will always get a leftist idiots spooring his stupidy ideas, like: cops shond't use guys, they should give lollypops to criminals. So we get used to ignorer, because in this specific case, science shondt be follwed!

@nhbbear @Protectandserve - Can chime in!
 
Osculater said:
Yeah, mang, it contains unstable isotopes that disrupts the neogenesis of the underdeveloped spine of children
Click to expand...
That’s easily solvable by eating local honey and pointing your no-no button directly at the sun for 8 minutes a day
 
Milgrim said:
On the weekend, my anti-vax sister-in-law told me I should do my own research. I told her that I don't have a medical degree or a lab, so I was going to leave it to the people who do.
Click to expand...
- My brother boss said he did a research founding that our Municipal Guard is a waste and doesnt work. I asked him to show me that research. It's been more than a year now. Yes, he is antivax also.
 
TheMoa said:
There has always been delusional guys and grifters making outstanding claims on this or that but they didnt have an platform to talk too. Sometimes some of them would get on TV/Radio and get some eyeballs, but upon further inspection (it could take some time) they would phase out of those platforms as the media would bring specialist too.

Internet and social media gave a platform to everybody to "tell their truth". Meanwhile traditional media lost public trust as people started to have access to different version of stories and could see different kind of biases, specially on the political stuff.

That gave "alternative media" more power as they weren't "restricted by sponsors interest" (funny thing is, most podcast are a ad nightmare nowadays). After that we had Covid and everything went to shit. It gave every fool the "but the scientists" or "the academia" is lying fallback on anything. As if the academia or science is a single body of consensus on every area all over the world, it's stupidity on roids. Hard facts and studies got conflated with all the polical stuff.

You go watch a podcast like Rogan and it's a long line of grifters talking dumb shit with no data to back it up. Their "own research" has no metodology, the host generally doesnt know or understand this and there's no pushback. For the podcast host, bringing an "alternative" guy brings more controversy and views than bringing the "boring specialist" who will give the standar acceptable knowledge.

So the average man knows he's being lied to in many things. If he has a controversial opnion in a thing that gets pushback, he'll be more sympathetic to opnions of people who is "being supressed" for their opnions in another things. This breeds distrust and the guy start to go with what he believes anyway, even if it's plain stupid.
I've honestly have been guilty on this on some stuff, it happens.
Click to expand...
- Security podcasts and bodybuilding have the most griffters per capita. And i aint talking about the cool comic-book character.
 
LeonardoBjj said:
- My brother boss said he did a research founding that our Municipal Guard is a waste and doesnt work. I asked him to show me that research. It's been more than a year now. Yes, he is antivax also.
Click to expand...
I don't know but I believe him
 
T
terrapin said:
I think unintentionally you answered your own question with the mechanic because you absolutely should be very wary of mechanics because they use the fact that they have expertise to lie to you and scam you. Reader's digest did a test on 10 different dentists and seven of them lied completely and charged up to $5,000 for work that didn't need done. The list can go on and on.
Click to expand...

Yea Bert K. has a great story about this. It's not in the video but he ended up going to another dentist who was like uhh no we don't need to do most of that.

 
Gamer2k4 said:
People like to proclaim that as a strength of science, and in large part it is, but the flip side of that is that science is wrong often enough that we can talk about how it gets corrected. What are the odds that today is the first moment in history that we've finally gotten everything right and there will never be any more corrections?
Click to expand...
It can also be paid for...
 
Whippy McGee said:
I speak at events often and get challenged. I use it as an opportunity to dive deeper and expose how their question/comment has merit or not and why not. It's a good practice to improve your ability to defend your positions without being adversarial, even if they are. I will say, the public does not attend our nuclear energy events.

I am interested though... what is the deal with microplastics?
Click to expand...

That they bio-accumulate in our bodies (and throughout the ecosystem), but the full impacts of what this means in terms of long term materiality on health or ecological outcomes is that we don't know. There is disingenuous science being done by both pro and anti plastic researchers that have clouded the issue.

My position with the general public when asked is that these things are real, but it is premature to stop using all plastics and demand that the government dig up PVC pipes in fear of micro plastics. However, we cannot pretend that it doesn't exist and is completely safe.

I never shy away from a difference of opinion, but the gentleman in question says that the plastics from water bottles are clogging his arteries. That is not what the study said and attempting to explain causality vs correlation and study controls to most people is a waste of breath.
 
DoctorTaco said:
"You merely adopted mount stupid; I was born on top of it, molded by it. I didn't see the light of logic until I was already a man, by then it was nothing to me but blinding! The shadows betray you because they belong to me.”
Click to expand...

Ok, Bane
 
LeonardoBjj said:
- In public security you will always get a leftist idiots spooring his stupidy ideas, like: cops shond't use guys, they should give lollypops to criminals. So we get used to ignorer, because in this specific case, science shondt be follwed!

@nhbbear @Protectandserve - Can chime in!
Click to expand...

I used to get told how to do my job all the time. Thank goodness they were there when things got hairy
 
Fox by the Sea said:
You have to remember how many times science, especially stuff like medical science, has been wrong in the past. we still can't answer how many eggs are good for you and we had doctors saying smoking is great.
Click to expand...

Science isn't religion, it's not infallible.

So you debunk bad science/research with good science/research from scholars and researchers, not with "nah, that's bullshit" from Joe the mechanic.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

N13
Opinion The good, the bad and the ugly.
3 4 5
Replies
82
Views
1K
Satsui Ryu
Satsui Ryu

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,280,145
Messages
58,261,821
Members
175,984
Latest member
Omar Ahmed Lotfy

Share this page

Back
Top