• s20@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    2 years ago

    That is an impossible standard for folks to love by. I can’t do that, and neither can you.

    When I say I “trust in science” I’m talking about the process and the method. Which means I trust the results when people follow that process. i also trust that the answers may change if there’s new information, because that’s part of the process.

    I don’t have the equipment to perform all those experiments. Even if I did, I wouldn’t trust the results because I don’t have the education to set up, run, and interpret an experiment more complicated than improving my chili recipe.

    So, in much the same way that I trust a mechanic to fix my transmission and a.plumber to fix my pipes, I trust a scientist to follow the scientific method.

    That’s what “trusting science” means.

    • utopianfiat@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      2 years ago

      I trust a scientist to follow the scientific method.

      The scientific method isn’t an epistemological framework, it’s a framework for practicing science.

      • s20@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        2 years ago

        And what part of what I said made you think I don’t know that?

        I’m aspedantic as anyone, but at this point you’re being antagonistic. Either you legitimately don’t know you’re doing it, or you’re intentionally trying to make people feel stupid. But you definitely know what people mean when they say they “trust” science.

        Please stop. You’re making pedants like me look bad.

        • utopianfiat@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          2 years ago

          Why assume I’m being pedantic? The social media landscape is littered with “I fucking love science” clickbait, “amazing nature” accounts that are literally AI generated photos, hell, the entire fields of evolutionary psychology and nutrition ought to be a wholesale indictment of our contemporary scientific establishment.

          This isn’t pedantry, I am serious as a heart attack.

          • s20@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            2 years ago

            I mostly assumed you were being pedantic when you tried to make out that I thought science was epistemological rather than methodological when I had mentioned science as a methodology in my previous post. This lead me to three possibilities (well, likely possibilityies, anyway):

            1. You didn’t really read what I wrote
            2. You’re dumb
            3. You’re being pedantic to belittle people.

            Now, you’re pretty clearly not dumb, so I just eliminated 2. That left me with 1 and 3 as the most likely. I played the odds that someone who was clever couldn’t possibly have missed the point of the initial comment so many times, so I went with 3.

            What I didn’t count on was possibility 4: you’ve had to deal with so many morons who don’t know what “science” means that your default assumption is that people mean something dumb when they say “I trust science.”

            Which is my bad, really. I should have asked. I apologize.