# Common Misconceptions about Science **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 28, 2011, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634 "2011-12-28T16:34:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634/1 "2011-12-28T16:34:31Z")
Because I’d like to see how this turns out, I’ll start a new thread based on this post: > [@What would Jesus think about all the adulation?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-jesus-think-about-all-the-adulation/607508/64): > > three things I can automatically come up with, sociology, criminology, and anthropoly. > > We cannot use the scientific method on crimes nor can we on culture. We cannot pick 500 kids, place half in low income neighborhoods and the other in high class neighborhoods and see how their life develops. Why? 1) because it’s unethical. You can’t just buy kids and place them wherever you feel like it. 2) because life is too chaotic and a poor could become rich and vice-versa. > > But does that mean that being poor or coming from a poor neighborhood don’t contribute to crime? > > Furthermore, we often use the term “culture.” Anthropology is nothing more than a collection of stories put together to create a “culture.” Can we test this “culture?” Maybe we could get a bunch of people and toss them into this “culture” and see what happens. but again their actions or inactions would be from “stories.” > > but is culture a real product or is it a fairy tale? > > that is what I mean by science cannot prove everything. Some things are either too unethical or too abstract to prove. But do we still believe that they’re real? Is culture real? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on their point of view I’m not quite ready to jump into this poorly argued quagmire, but I’d love to see the bloodbath…er debate on this one. ---
**Author:** ![commoncents](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9f8e36/32.png) [@commoncents](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commoncents)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634/2 "2011-12-28T16:41:49Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Because I’d like to see how this turns out, I’ll start a new thread based on this post: > > I’m not quite ready to jump into this poorly argued quagmire, but I’d love to see the bloodbath…er debate on this one. go ahead and prove me wrong then. All I hear about from you “science lovers” are “you’re stupid” or “bad logic.” But yet I have yet seen one to attack my theories. Is it that hard for you or is science one of those, “we’re right you’re wrong” kind of deal? ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634/3 "2011-12-28T16:43:41Z")
What about it? It may be poorly argued, but he has a point, and those disciplines are not really science per se. They are attempts to figure out cause and effect, but in an environemnt which can never prove anything. I don’t necessarily agree with the poster, but he isn’t exactly _wrong_, either. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634/4 "2011-12-28T16:44:25Z")
> [@commoncents](#): > > But yet I have yet seen one to attack my theories. Could you please restate those here? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634/5 "2011-12-28T16:47:02Z")
A link to the original thread would help. That post, without context, doesn’t mean much to me. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634/6 "2011-12-28T16:48:06Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Could you please restate those here? How about > [@](#): > > Anthropology is nothing more than a collection of stories put together to create a “culture.” This isn’t a “theory” in any sense of the word-this is a hint that somebody needed to receive a dictionary for Christmas. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634/7 "2011-12-28T16:48:55Z")
There are ‘soft’ sciences and ‘hard’ sciences. The soft sciences regularly ignore scientific methodology because they delve into areas where the underlying mechanisms cannot be observed. So they base conclusions based on correlations of subjectively interpreted data. This doesn’t make science as whole fallible, just those particular fields. In those fields, and often in academia, there is little criticism of the faulty techniques. But I know plenty of ‘hard’ scientists who scoff at the nonsense in these fields. ---
**Author:** ![commoncents](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9f8e36/32.png) [@commoncents](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commoncents)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634/8 "2011-12-28T16:50:49Z")
here’s my take on this issue, I keep hearing this common argument 1. poster#1 will argue that god exists 2. poster#2 will argue that god does not exist because science cannot prove it 3. Poster #1: why? But you hear stories all the time… 4. poster#2: Stories are not science. They’re stories. thus the common argument i see is, “if it cannot be proven by science, it does not exist.” accordingly, “stories are not science.” My argument is that certain things in life cannot be proven by science. For example, why one person commits crime while another does not. it has been written by many criminologists that criminals exposed to crime at an early age, who lives in poorer neighborhood, who do not have parental support, etc all contributes to crime. However, these came from “stories” and interview. According to the posters above, this is not “science.” But it would be illogical to argue that poorer people, who without parental supervison do not commit more crime than those from richer and more socially structured life. Thus can science prove why one would commit crime and one would not? Or is criminology “junk science”? ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634/9 "2011-12-28T16:50:55Z")
**commoncents** - are you arguing that without the ability to test in the lab, it is not science? Criminology researchers develop a hypothesis, and then test it against data. It is true that you can not do a full, environmentally controlled experiment - but there are ways to control for a variety of factors (e.g. access to education, dual-parent household, socio-economic status) to see what does and does not appear to correlate with level of crime. Sometimes we find amazing things. A favorite example of mine is the researcher at USC who found a higher level of poor eyesight among gangs in South Central Los Angeles. He then worked on further refining his analysis to go down this path: Young male, poor eyesight. No access to health care, esp. glasses (or won’t wear them) Sits in the back of the classroom due to societal pressure Can not read the board, and possibly not the book. Fails classes Drops out No job prospects Gang life Now, each one of these can be measured and tested for, and then analyzed. That is science. While there is the risk of allowing your personal bias to impact the coding of the data sets, there is still the scientific method being applied. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634/10 "2011-12-28T16:50:58Z")
Nor can we pick 500 stars, tweak the composition of half of them and see how their properties change. Does that mean the scientific method cannot be applied to astronomy? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634/11 "2011-12-28T16:52:30Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > A link to the original thread would help. That post, without context, doesn’t mean much to me. [Starting over here.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14609490#post14609490) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634/12 "2011-12-28T16:54:47Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > Nor can we pick 500 stars, tweak the composition of half of them and see how their properties change. I would add the word “yet” to the end of that sentence. “Science hasn’t done it yet” is '_not_ the same thing as “science can’t do it ever.” ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634/13 "2011-12-28T16:55:54Z")
> [@commoncents](#): > > it has been written by many criminologists that criminals exposed to crime at an early age, who lives in poorer neighborhood, who do not have parental support, etc all contributes to crime. > > However, these came from “stories” and interview. According to the posters above, this is not “science.” But it would be illogical to argue that poorer people, who without parental supervison do not commit more crime than those from richer and more socially structured life. > > Thus can science prove why one would commit crime and one would not? Or is criminology “junk science”? Stories? - Exposure to crime at an early age is quantifiable data - Home address and the level of income is quantifiable data - Lack of parents or parental support is quantifiable data, though it requires some subjective initial coding when setting up the measure - Whether or not the child is a criminal or not (and what level) is quantifiable data From those data points we could find some predictive variables that would indicate a higher propensity to engage in various levels of crime. Criminologists will not come out and say that every child who fits certain criteria will become criminals - but they will say that certain factors have a higher correlation with crime. By the time that research hits the mainstream media, it can be a bit distorted. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634/14 "2011-12-28T16:56:55Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > What about it? It may be poorly argued, but he has a point, and those disciplines are not really science per se. Well, the original argument was that the scientific method could not be applied to any of these. That’s ridiculous on the face of it. How about one example: > [@commoncents](#): > > We cannot use the scientific method on crimes nor can we on culture. We cannot pick 500 kids, place half in low income neighborhoods and the other in high class neighborhoods and see how their life develops. This actually is wrong. We _could_ use scientific methods in this context. But political, ethical, and practical considerations make it unlikely. And there’ve been plenty of ethically questionable sociological and physiological studies performed on people that, while not as bad as this particular proposed experiment, were plenty bad themselves (Tuskegee, Stanford Prison, Third Wave, Nazi experiments, eugenics, etc). As such, it’s not actually an argument that the scientific method can’t apply but that there are external factors which make the ideal scientific experiment impractical. Basically, there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of actual science here. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > A link to the original thread would help. That post, without context, doesn’t mean much to me. Sorry about that. [Here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=636327&page=2)’s the link to the other thread (starting on page 2, as that’s where this particular digression came from). ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634/15 "2011-12-28T16:57:13Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > [Starting over here.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14609490#post14609490) Thanks. BFD. Science cannot answer all the question we have\*, but it is the best tool we have to deal with the real world. Religion can produce some great literature, but it’s not a useful tool to understand the workings of the world. \*anyone who claims it can does not understand science. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634/16 "2011-12-28T17:04:38Z")
Actually, it is a BFD. Without explicitly saying so (though coming very close very often), **commoncents** denigrates a scientific ability to answer _any_ question because: 1. It can’t answer _every_ question. 2. It is is comprised mainly of “random guessing” - even going so far as to claim this is how Einstein, Bohr, and others developed their theories. 3. Because of (1) and (2), this makes science equivalent to a religion, with its adherents. There’s just so much wrong with each of those points it astounds. Fighting ignorance, and all that. ---
**Author:** ![commoncents](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9f8e36/32.png) [@commoncents](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commoncents)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634/17 "2011-12-28T17:04:42Z")
> [@Algher](#): > > Stories? > > - Exposure to crime at an early age is quantifiable data > - Home address and the level of income is quantifiable data > - Lack of parents or parental support is quantifiable data, though it requires some subjective initial coding when setting up the measure > - Whether or not the child is a criminal or not (and what level) is quantifiable data > > From those data points we could find some predictive variables that would indicate a higher propensity to engage in various levels of crime. Criminologists will not come out and say that every child who fits certain criteria will become criminals - but they will say that certain factors have a higher correlation with crime. By the time that research hits the mainstream media, it can be a bit distorted. but wouldn’t that be junk science? It seems to me that posters all argue that science occurs in one way and one way only. That there are no alternatives. But yet science has yet to determine why rich people who are socially and financially sound commit crime. Furthermore, science has yet to determine why one person commits crime and another don’t. Also you can quantify all you way but science is about causation, not correlation. ---
**Author:** ![commoncents](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9f8e36/32.png) [@commoncents](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commoncents)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634/18 "2011-12-28T17:05:43Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Thanks. > > BFD. Science cannot answer all the question we have\*, but it is the best tool we have to deal with the real world. Religion can produce some great literature, but it’s not a useful tool to understand the workings of the world. > > \*anyone who claims it can does not understand science. how dare you argue that science cannot answer all our questions. You should be stoned to death ---
**Author:** ![commoncents](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9f8e36/32.png) [@commoncents](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commoncents)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634/19 "2011-12-28T17:11:08Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Actually, it is a BFD. > > Without explicitly saying so (though coming very close very often), **commoncents** denigrates a scientific ability to answer _any_ question because: > > 1. It can’t answer _every_ question. > 2. It is is comprised mainly of “random guessing” - even going so far as to claim this is how Einstein, Bohr, and others developed their theories. > 3. Because of (1) and (2), this makes science equivalent to a religion, with its adherents. > > There’s just so much wrong with each of those points it astounds. > > Fighting ignorance, and all that. and that’s why you’re any idiot. I said that science can’t answer “EVERY” questions. I never said that it can’t answer “ANY” questions. You seriously need to go back to school. I’m just saying that we should keep an open mind. It seems like everytime someone mention ghosts, god, or w/e, posters flock to the thread and argue “god is not real because science can’t prove it.” Look I’m sorry that you have a reading impairment, not my fault ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634/20 "2011-12-28T17:11:59Z")
> [@commoncents](#): > > how dare you argue that science cannot answer all our questions. You should be stoned to death Is that strawman heavy? Nobody who understands the scientific method would claim it can answer all questions. Attributing that attitude to proponents of science is strawcrafting of the highest order. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/common-misconceptions-about-science/607634.md?page=2)