# Is there a paradigm shift happening about science/scientists perceived role in society ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 20, 2020, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-paradigm-shift-happening-about-science-scientists-perceived-role-in-society/854181 "2020-05-20T13:52:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-paradigm-shift-happening-about-science-scientists-perceived-role-in-society/854181/61 "2020-05-22T17:25:14Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > When was the last time you saw a protest against nuclear weapons? For the most part the anti nuclear weapon protests were financed by the USSR, since it disbanded so did the anti nuke protests. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-paradigm-shift-happening-about-science-scientists-perceived-role-in-society/854181/62 "2020-05-22T17:58:36Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > When was the last time you saw a protest against nuclear weapons? How is that relevant, unless what the OP is asking about is not people’s overall opinions about science/technology developments, but merely which of them happen to be hot-button issues of the moment? I don’t deny that the objections to vaccines promulgated by a vocal minority are getting much more media attention these days than objections to nuclear weapons. But the fact remains that when you look at the overall status of popular opinion, people in general are much more approving of vaccines than of nuclear weapons. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-paradigm-shift-happening-about-science-scientists-perceived-role-in-society/854181/63 "2020-05-22T17:59:59Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > For the most part the anti nuclear weapon protests were financed by the USSR, since it disbanded so did the anti nuke protests. :dubious: Cite? AFAICT this conspiracy-theory claim is complete bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-paradigm-shift-happening-about-science-scientists-perceived-role-in-society/854181/64 "2020-05-22T18:09:26Z")
Soviet defectors claim its true per Wiki: > [@](#): > > Russian GRU defector Stanislav Lunev said in his autobiography that “the GRU and the KGB helped to fund just about every antiwar movement and organization in America and abroad,” and that during the Vietnam War the USSR gave $1 billion to American anti-war movements, more than it gave to the VietCong,[19] although he does not identify any organisation by name. Lunev described this as a “hugely successful campaign and well worth the cost”.[19] The former KGB officer Sergei Tretyakov said that the Soviet Peace Committee funded and organized demonstrations in Europe against US bases.[20] According to Time magazine, a US State Department official estimated that the KGB may have spent $600 million on the peace offensive up to 1983, channeling funds through national Communist parties or the World Peace Council “to a host of new antiwar organizations that would, in many cases, reject the financial help if they knew the source.”[13] Richard Felix Staar in his book Foreign Policies of the Soviet Union says that non-communist peace movements without overt ties to the USSR were “virtually controlled” by it. Lord Chalfont claimed that the Soviet Union was giving the European peace movement £100 million a year. The Federation of Conservative Students (FCS) alleged Soviet funding of CND. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2020, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-paradigm-shift-happening-about-science-scientists-perceived-role-in-society/854181/65 "2020-05-22T19:09:06Z")
Plausible, but not at all the same thing as the claim that US antinuclear protests were crucially **dependent** on Soviet funding, which is what the previous poster seemed to be suggesting. ---
**Author:** ![Mcmechanic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@Mcmechanic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mcmechanic)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-paradigm-shift-happening-about-science-scientists-perceived-role-in-society/854181/66 "2020-05-23T01:44:35Z")
Things might get kinda sticky if a vaccine for covid-19 is ever developed. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2020, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-paradigm-shift-happening-about-science-scientists-perceived-role-in-society/854181/67 "2020-05-23T17:35:49Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > I see people from these educated circles shopping at Whole Foods all the time when science says Organic food is no better :smack: Go figure > > Or at farmers markets when science says local grown food is not the best for environment > > Or buying organic cotton when science shows it is worse for the environment > > Or breastfeeding babies as a lifestyle choice … I think **Wendell Wagner** covered that well in his post #32 and I fully concur. Taking the first two in particular (I have no strong opinions on the latter two) I occasionally shop at a grocery that in my view is much superior to Whole Foods and generally at least as expensive if not more so, but it has absolutely nothing to do with anything being “organic” and everything to do with high quality and uniqueness. Their meats and fish are generally superior to what I’d find in even a high-end grocery store, often uniquely and beautifully marinated, and their deli and prepared foods sections contain many wonderful things you’d find nowhere else. That’s why I shop there, though I’m not rich enough to do it regularly or often. There’s nothing “unscientific” about that. I don’t go to farmer’s markets very often but when I do it’s because the wide variety of usually fresh high quality produce and other items makes it interesting. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > We’re still seeing the effect of that cycle, with the internet, as always, magnifying the voices of the antis. Unlike Thelma Lou, I believe we’re at the bottom of a very real and dangerous cycle. Books like Susan Jacobs’ _The Rise of American Unreason_ (2008) chart the fall, although she talks about anti-intellectualism more generally than pure anti-science. > > The news, as always, focuses on the loud yahoos protesting reasonable pandemic measures. But two-thirds or more of the population quietly agrees with the measures in every survey. That may forecast a change in attitude, especially when a workable vaccine is widely distributed. If not, we’re in for a very bumpy ride. This tends to be true for beliefs that are falsely perceived as “controversial” by some significant minority of the public, and the false controversy is typically driven by either economic factors (the pandemic quarantine, climate change mitigation) or religious ones (evolution, abortion rights, the nature of the cosmos). These falsehoods are propagated both by ignorant media in the guise of “balance” and, worse, by media that is deliberately deceptive in support of vested interests, and further amplified by the plague of fake news on social media. Things like beliefs in medical quackery or fear of vaccines is just some combination of ignorance and paranoia fueled by the same sources. The US now has a president who lies constantly, habitually, and routinely, and apparently without consequence. _New Scientist_ magazine, in its cover story in the issue for the week of October 29 - November 4, 2011, talked about this phenomenon in the context of climate change denial, under the cover heading “Unscientific America: A dangerous retreat from reason”. People do generally tend to trust science if they have no personal stake in the matter, but it’s amazing how much personal interests distort the beliefs of otherwise rational people. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2020, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-paradigm-shift-happening-about-science-scientists-perceived-role-in-society/854181/68 "2020-05-25T14:33:30Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > If you asked a batch of Democratic presidential candidates whether they support traditional medicine, I think you’d get a pretty positive response. No one asks it, since it is a non-issue. “Traditional” medicine describes naturopathy, homeopathy, chiropractic etc. - which involve traditional remedies that are hardly ever discarded no matter how useless or even harmful they’ve been shown to be. Mainstream medicine on the other hand is constantly revising its approach based on new evidence, while discarding (sometimes reluctantly) outmoded traditional therapies. Off my soapbox. OK, back on briefly. > [@Mcmechanic](#): > > Things might get kinda sticky if a vaccine for covid-19 is ever developed. It’s looking that way. Some thought antivaxers might hunker down out of public view given the prospect of a life-saving and pandemic-ending Covid-19 vaccine. Instead, [they seem to have been energized](http://sciencebasedmedicine.org/preemptive-disinformation-war-against-covid-19-vaccine/). ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2020, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-paradigm-shift-happening-about-science-scientists-perceived-role-in-society/854181/69 "2020-05-25T16:29:47Z")
We can’t trust scientists until they [stop shifting our paradigm](https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10103076582900153&set=gm.1792673180872654&type=3&theater&ifg=1). ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2020, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-paradigm-shift-happening-about-science-scientists-perceived-role-in-society/854181/70 "2020-05-25T20:20:12Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > “Traditional” medicine describes naturopathy, homeopathy, chiropractic etc. - which involve traditional remedies that are hardly ever discarded no matter how useless or even harmful they’ve been shown to be. Mainstream medicine on the other hand is constantly revising its approach based on new evidence, while discarding (sometimes reluctantly) outmoded traditional therapies. Chiropractic, for instance, is not that old. I’d call traditional medicine the use of herbs and such, some of which even work. “Alternative” is the accepted name for such crap. > [@](#): > > Off my soapbox. OK, back on briefly.It’s looking that way. Some thought antivaxers might hunker down out of public view given the prospect of a life-saving and pandemic-ending Covid-19 vaccine. Instead, [they seem to have been energized](http://sciencebasedmedicine.org/preemptive-disinformation-war-against-covid-19-vaccine/). Unfortunately, all too true. Statistics and pointing to evidence about vaccines being safe doesn’t work very well. I’ve found that a good answer to the “it’s just measles, why risk a vaccine” crowd is to tell them that 110,000 people died of measles world wide a few years ago. That shuts them up. The easy to grasp spread of measles in Disney helped get California’s law getting rid of personal exemptions passed. Highlighting anti-vaxxers suffering and dying from Covid-19 will help more than assurances of safety. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-paradigm-shift-happening-about-science-scientists-perceived-role-in-society/854181.md?page=3)