Transcript of War on Science By Adam Hatefi. The Question We Are Trying to Answer What factors could effect an...
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War on Science By Adam Hatefi
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The Question We Are Trying to Answer What factors could effect
an individuals denial of natural sciences and thus affecting the
shared knowledge of the society?
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Introduction In the last few years there has been an opposition
against scientific concepts among non-scientists that has created a
global issue by limiting the influence of science on society. Today
we will look at the factors involved in this global issue.
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Natural Sciences: a Quick Review Natural Sciences are the
analyzed information that we (scientists) gather by relying on
evidence and experiment from the world around us.
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Skepticism and Pseudo Science: a Quick Review
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Primary Source My primary source is the National Geographic
article of the May 2015 issue of the magazine on War on Science.
Its a long article, wo we are not reading it here. However, all the
topics that we go through have been mentioned in it.
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What Topics Are Controversial? Climate Change Vaccines
Evolution and Creation
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Why? Because these concepts are the ones most affected by the
factors discussed in this presentation. As we proceed, you will see
the connections.
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Main Factors: a List Religion, Culture and Tribal Values Media
Consequences of Acceptance Trust Scientist Isolation Intuition
Ignorance and Miseducation
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Religion, Culture and Tribal Values Each of us, no matter what
our origins, have lived and grown in a certain environment with
certain people who have certain beliefs. We tend to adapt and agree
most of the times, simply to not to be an outsider.
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Religion, Culture and Tribal Values If people around us believe
in certain cultural values or religion and it does not agree with
certain scientific concepts, we tend to reject those concepts.
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Religion, Culture and Tribal Values It is not only about what
we learn, but also about fitting in. How would our tribe react if
we reject its values? Probably not very well.
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Media In todays world, mass media like cable TV and internet is
a great facto in what we learn and what we believe. Back in the
days when science went through certain gateways before it reached
people it wasnt so easy to distribute false information.
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Consequences of Acceptance In many cases, accepting a
scientific concept (e.g. causation of global warming by human
activities) does not pay off. If we accept it, it may have many
consequences that may limit the free market, increase taxes and
generally lead to more regulations of how we live our lives.
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Trust Another important part is, how much do we trust these
scientists? Many people think that scientific concepts just come
out of a scientists lab or library when in fact they are examined
by the entire scientific community who really like discrediting
each other. Still we ask, whether we can trust them.
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Scientist Isolation One of the most important causes if this
distrust is the fact that scientists do not usually get involved in
public affairs. For them, I is usually simply inconvenient to do so
while heir isolation gives space to skeptics to say whatever they
want.
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Intuition Its also important to remember that in many cases,
people dont believe because they cant see or feel the concept that
science is trying to show. We dont fell that Earth is spinning, so
we almost killed Galileo. People tend not to believe what is
against their intuition.
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Ignorance and Miseducation There are also things that are
considered pseudo science, but accepted by many people as facts.
These act both ways: makes them ignorant, and makes other people
skeptical. Miseducation is a very important factor: most of these
people do not really know what they are talking about.
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How Do These All Relate/ How is our knowledge of natural
sciences affected by these factors?
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How Do These All Relate? If mass media and internet did not
facilities distribution of false information, how would the problem
with vaccines still exist? If it wasnt for negative financial
consequences, regulation for climate change control would have
never been delayed so much.
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How Do These All Relate? Ignorance and miseducation also allows
more people to accept false information, since that is what they
are initially told. We do not trust new concepts because we are
more comfortable with the old ones and we dont trust scientists
maybe if
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How Do These All Relate? they reached out and told us what we
need to know instead of being a relatively isolated community,
people wouldnt have so much problem with science.
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How Do These All Relate? Finally, if it was not because of the
disagreement of scientific concepts with our intuition and tribal
values we wouldnt discredit them as easily. Revolution is a great
example for this category: many people disagree with it because
people around them do so.
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Conclusion It is important to understand these factors and
their relationship with what we consider controversial and try to
minimize them in our community as much as possible because if we
dont, it may have catastrophic results. Before disagreeing with
science, we must evaluate why we are skeptic of that concept.
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Conclusion If it is any of the above, then it is the first kind
of skepticism that we saw on the video. We have to remember that to
deny or defy science, we have to come at it with logic and
ration.