Monday, February 22, 2010
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I have such adorable, creative,& stubborn children....share the frustration, the cuteness, the highly imaginative ramblings and the gritty reality of our day to day life, well...not all of it. I am,afterall, hoping to retain people's good opinion. : ) PS. Warning! If grammar and spelling errors bother you.....I expect most of this to be stream of conscience type writing-and my spelling could be described as creative, or occasionally hopeful.
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3 comments:
This article is loaded with sloppy generalizations and misunderstandings. Rather than point out why she's wrong line-by-line, I'll explain what the scientific method actually is.
First off, science is meant to be a process with results that are not necessarily written in stone. I am always confused by people who expect scientists to always be right when they announce something, but god forbid if they're wrong they should admit the mistake. This is actually one of the best traits of science: When they're wrong, they admit it. It may take a little while, but you don't see scientists taking 400 years to reverse their stance on eggs for example. It is not dogma, it is not doctrine or religion; it is exactly the opposite of that. Because the fact of the matter is you don't eliminate smallpox or polio by believing that demons cause disease. Maybe you start out believing that, but you find out it doesn't work and you move on to another idea.
This isn't to say that there aren't any people or organizations who treat science or their experiments as dogma. It's human nature to be attached to your ideas and beliefs against contrary evidence. Even the best scientists will have flawed ideas or biases. No one will deny that, and that's why we try to have safeguards against it. This is by using double-blind controlled experiments (or studies), making sure results are published in peer-reviewed journals, and replicating those experiments to make sure that given the same conditions, everyone will get the same results. The other important thing to understand about this is that even with those guards, mistakes and bias can still sometimes slip through, and no one is denying that. There is room for ambiguity and the use of critical thinking to decide which conclusions to believe.
Continued...
I can't speak for everyone, but I can say that just because you disagree with me about a certain science-related issue doesn't make you anti-science. What matters is what evidence you give for your position. It may be true that labs without ties to industry get a different result that shows that compound X is dangerous while labs with ties show that it's not dangerous. Going by this alone, it might seem reasonable to suspect that money is influencing the results. But the fact of the matter is until you look at the studies for yourself (and make sure you understand them, not just skim over and find a few phrases that seem to support your ideas), you really don't know whose science is 'right'. It's true that you can make a study say anything you want. But the studies that say whatever you want without showing the hard data will generally be poorly designed. They will have small sample groups or no control groups. They might extrapolate a conclusion that the data doesn't support. There's a million things that can throw the results of a study into doubt, and even if the study seems to show an interesting result, unless other people replicate the study, you really don't have a basis to claim anything. And if the study is published in Joe Schmoe Journal that isn't peer-reviewed and commented on, forget about it. So yes, a study can say whatever you want it to. But that doesn't mean people can't look at the report and realize for themselves it's BS or not.
In the time I've been looking at studies on the "controversial" issues that blog mentions (fluoridization, vaccines, climate change, etc) I've noticed a general trend. A lot of the studies that go against scientific consensus are ignored for a very good reason. I have yet to see a well-designed study that showed a link between vaccines and autism (and even if there was a link, correlation doesn't equal causation) or that GMOs are dangerous to your health, etc.
I'll admit that on climate change in particular, there is a bit of wiggle room; but unfortunately you have to read the studies for yourself, really slog through it, because reporters are often unreliable. Headlines are ALWAYS more sensationalist than the actual study. One study I read on GMOs was reported with the headline "GMO corn linked to organ failure". What the study said was a very different matter: the authors said gmo corn potentially causes organ damage (very different from organ failure), but that their sample sizes were small and more studies needed to be done. They didn't come right out and say that because they fed rats ONLY corn for 90 days, their results were bound to be a little wonky. But there you have it, a study tries to be modest about its results and honest that it wasn't conclusive in any sense, and journalism totally ignores it.
Basically, think for yourself and for goodness sake, get some kind of basic scientific knowledge before pointing fingers at "big science". It's easier to read one article in the paper that's written for the layman, but working to read the studies themselves with all the technical terms is much more accurate and well worth the time, considering it's your health at stake.
Well written Claire. I agree with nearly everything you've said. But methinks you missed her point.
At least in communities I frequent, most do seem to think of science as a religion. I would say in general, people who want to be told what to do-which includes people I know in real life, not just the internet, actually do believe that if a scientist or a doctor says it, it is true. But I do think you are hopelessly niave if you think that money and companies who fund some-not all-of these studies do not at all influence their results, or at the very least the results that get published or publicized.
I have frequently encountered the attitude she speaks of. There are many who think if you question or disagree with the results of whatever study has been thrown about that it means you ARE anti-science. That you must believe vaccines are the sole cause of autism. That you are rejecting pure unadulterated fact. You are just a sterotype to them and they don't bother to consider any of your points. Many seem to blindly believe the headlines. When the reality is that what it accepted as fact is fluent. She's replying to that attitude, which may not be something you've encountered as you live in a very different world than I do.
PS. you were accurate about the passive agressive comment, that made me smile.
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