This is the subject of an excellent book from nearly twenty years ago by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, called Trust Us, We’re Experts! How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future.
Thanks!
I wanted to do some reading on the subject and I just started with The Triumph of Doubt by David Michaels. So far I’m not incredibly impressed with his writing and I’m glad for another book recommend.
It is the nature of our “civilized” culture. Our economy is fundamentally based on deceit. If that one guy fucked you over, it is your fault because you were not paying attention or were just not smart enough to see it coming, and that one guy may well have had article IV § 15 clause 4 (the law) backing his (possibly unethical) play.
The smart guys are always looking for an angle, a way to properly take more of your stuff that they are reasonably entitled to. Hence, we have developed a natural tendency to distrust the smart guys, because so many of them are leveraging their wit and cunning toward the overfucking.
Scientists are the really smart guys. Hence, they must be looking for ways to fuck us over, because that is what smart guys do. Why should we trust them over those other guys who tell us what we want to hear and make us feel smarter than the smart guys?
I don’t see a ‘‘paradigm shift’’ in which science is derided now.
The rise of Internet “research” and intense social media sharing among the doggedly ignorant has had a negative effect on perceptions of science/scientists, along with credulously poor reporting by major media which trumpets new research without providing context, leading to disillusionment when conflicting views and evidence emerge (that’s always been part of science which many don’t realize).
Then there are revelations of hanky-panky in research. We hear a lot more now about manipulated and made-up evidence leading to scandals and retractions. Part of the reason is that there are many more professional and amateur sleuths examining published papers and detecting fraudulent activity, so one could get the impression there’s been an explosion of sleaze when better detection plays a large part.
Sorry to keep harping on this, but understanding of science’s role depends heavily on our teaching critical thinking skills to schoolchildren, so they’ll be less susceptible to the siren song of quacks and conspiracy theorists.
Hey, OP, it’s happening in this very thread! :eek:
OP, I don’t understand your local food thing – people I know don’t eat local food because it’s better for the environment. They do it to support their local economy and because the food will be fresher and often tastier.
Over the last 50 years science skepticism has probably increased in the Republican party particularly on the issue of climate change but it doesn’t seem to have broadly affected public opinion.
I know this is playing the devil’s advocate, but there is a very good reason to trust science, it allowed us to really f*** over other nations that wanted to f*** us over. Hence the point made early that even the ones that think that they are doing good by disparaging science are in reality shooting themselves in their feet.
It is really almost obligatory to point here at deGrasse Tysen and Bill Moyers when they made the point that even republicans will have to eventually realize that defending science leads to American prosperity, supporting ignorance does lead to eventual ruin, and this is about economics so they **need **to listen. So when will that happen? I’m afraid it will take place by having most Americans voting the Republicans out of power so then they will get the message.
No, this is not a change in the last 20 or 30 years. Anti-intellectualism goes way back in American culture and the status of science, experts, intellectuals, and learning in general goes in cycles.
A long cycle lasted though the 1950s and the rise of the Space Age. The conquering of polio was probably its apex. But that overlapped with fear of what science had wrought because of the Atomic Age. Richard Hofstadter’s classic Anti-Intellectualism in American Life appeared in 1963, influenced by the intense antagonism generated by “egghead” Adlai Stevenson’s two failed presidential runs.By the end of the 1960s, the counterculture was profoundly anti-science because science was being misused by the military (think napalm and Agent Orange). “Plastics” in The Graduate represented everything about a phony consumer culture pushed by science perverted by capitalism. Computers created the next age, and big computers always were portrayed in popular culture as evil, which blended seamlessly into today’s surveillance fears as computers shrunk.
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.
Sales of “organic” food may be up, but to extrapolate from that to a conclusion that scientists are no longer respected strikes me as an extrapolation too far.
This caught my eye — I thought breastfeeding was widely advocated — so I Googled. If a quick glance at Google’s results is indicative, breastfeeding is still widely advocated but there was one controversial study a few years ago.
If “embracing science” means latching on to a single controversial 2017 paper and rejecting dozens of papers from the 1990’s and 2000’s, then count me out.
Unfortunately I don’t think we are at the bottom yet. People don’t recognize the price of ignoring science, especially when it is wrapped in the ugly cloth of politics.
It’s certainly true that we’ve abandoned the work against the real “invisible enemy” - climate change - for the pandemic. I saw an op-ed piece from a right-winger saying that since Los Angeles is faring better than New York, we need to rethink all the emphasis about going back to dense urban districts and mass transportation and go with sprawl and cars. :smack:
It’s never safe to predict a bottom of any cycle, but I think it’s true that we are at a lower point in the cycle than at any earlier time. We’re near enough to zero that I think an upswing is coming. The upswing always comes at the lowest point when people are most concerned that the cycle will never end, so it’s sometimes good to be a contrarian.
am77494, let’s look at the things you claim show that science is distrusted:
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People shop at Whole Foods when science says organic food isn’t better.
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They shop at farmers markets when science says local grown food isn’t better either.
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They buy organic cotton when science says it isn’t better either.
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They breastfeed babies as a lifestyle choice.
O.K., let’s start with number 1. Whole Foods doesn’t just sell organic food. It does a mixture of organic and non-organic food. Other places do the same. I think you’re claiming that the sort of people who shop at Whole Foods are deliberately ignoring scientific claims. I’m not even sure that there is a Whole-Foods-type shopper. Where I live it’s just one of a number of different supermarkets near me. It appears to me that people shop there because it’s closer to them or has particular items that they need. It is more expensive, but that fact is usually exaggerated. It’s true that many people who shop there think that the food is better for the environment. It’s also true that it’s not clear that it is. This isn’t being anti-science; it’s having no time to sort through all the claims of what is best for the environment. My guess is that people who are concerned about the environment are on average more pro-science that other people. That doesn’t mean that they are always more clear or up-to-date about the current scientific evidence about the environment.
The same is true of number 2. It’s not clear that farmers markets are better for the environment than shopping at supermarkets. Is it even true that people who shop at farmers markets even care about the environment more than other people? I sometimes shop at a market run by Amish or Mennonites or something. In any case, they are dressed as if they are. This is not because I am about to convert. It’s because there are some items that I can get there most easily.
And the same is true about organic cotton in number 3. It’s not clear if it’s actually better for the environment. We should be sorting through all the scientific evidence better. So what? Are you seriously claiming that everyone at Whole Foods and farmers markets and other supposedly rabidly pro-environment places is deeply anti-science? What do you think happens there? Do your fellow shoppers come up to you, grab you by the lapels, shake you, and say, “Hey, you look like a scientist to me. I can tell by your wire-rimmed glasses and your pocket protector that you are. We don’t need your type here.”
I’m not sure what breast-feeding has to do with environmentalism.
Also, saying that about “20 or 30 years back science and scientists were perceived as the champions of humankind” is weird. That wasn’t even that long ago. I don’t see any clear shift since then. If I go strictly be my own memories (with no attempt to actually do any research on this), the most pro-scientific time in my very limited perspective was in the late 1960’s. Hey, we were going to the moon. Soon we’d be going to other planets and other stars and other galaxies. That was naive, of course. Being too optimistic about how science is progressing is bad too.
Well, you know, it is exactly like “All the scientists in the '70s were predicting a coming ice age and now they are whinging on about global warming, wtf” because one published treatise got a lot more press than it deserved. The media is kind of problematic in its uneven handling of the release of research.
People have already spoken to locally grown food and breastfeeding. I’ll take the only remaining one, organic cotton, and ask for some cites. I’m aware of the increased water usage, but there are a lot more factors at play when it comes to the environmental effects.
Sooo, would you like to actually tackle the three "Or"s that you have listed above and tell us the actual problem with them, scientifically speaking?
You left off the most obvious reason for buying at farmers markets. The produce is fresher, and fresher produce tends to taste better. The produce at the mass grocery stores is harvested while still immature so that it does not spoil during transportation. Produce at a farmers market is usually harvested within a few days, letting it ripen properly.
Actually, I think the whole “breast feeding” thing is a great discussion on science. A long, long time ago (50s? 60s?) the prevailing thought from the scientific community was that formula was far superior to breast milk. As further insights emerged about nutrition and immunity passed on through breast milk, the general scientific consensus flipped to breast milk being preferred, with formula used as a supplement. Breast feeding isn’t a “lifestyle choice”; it’s the preferred method.
The last time there was a full-on enthusiastic optimistic trust in science and technology here in the United States was the early 1960s. My parents very much came of age with that mindset. Rationality, not superstition. Doctors and scientists were heroes. Even inside churches, the emphasis was on exposing racism for the baseless crap that it was, and focusing on what the modern conscientious Christian can do now in this world to make things better for us all.
There was a backlash, partly embedded in the counterculture and partly in the evangelical Christian movement, embracing mystical insights and claiming legitimacy for processes of knowing that didn’t boil down to rational deductive reasoning. The hard science people had brought us the bomb and had DDT’d our environment into Silent Springhood. And given us plastic. They weren’t so great after all.
It’s been like that ever since, with oscillations in different social quarters. The left does eyerolls at the right for disbelieving in evolution but is open to alternatives to western medicine. The right makes fun of stuff like pyramid power and chakras but embraces the power of prayer. And all of us crave informed consent and getting second opinions, not simply trusting that our busy doctors will tell us what we really need to know, or that the health insurance nannies will allow them to.
I think the ideas that “science (and technology) will save us” and “science/technology can’t be trusted” have both been around for a long time in popular opinion and pop culture.
In looking for examples of both, I stumbled upon this interesting statement in the TVTropes page on Science Herp:
My response was in reply to the assertion that Educated, well read people are more rational / scientific.
Look there is nothing wrong with Whole Foods or Organic Food or Local Food or Breastfeeding or Organic Cotton.
The problem in my opinion (and in the opinion of the author quoted above) is all these things/values have become new Status symbols. They are sought after by the educated rich not because they are vastly superior (scientifically ) to traditional options but because they are unattainable by the median income American.
Which mother wouldn’t like to breastfeed her baby if she can? But the median income American mom cannot because her work will not allow her the time off or breaks.
Who wouldn’t like to eat Organic foods or Local market food - even though science has shown that they are marginally better than traditional food? Or the fuss about Quinoa ? Or free range eggs ? Or grass fed beef ? Or a multitude of supplements? Again this has become a class symbol and splits Americans into haves and have nots. The poor Americans have to be content with buying bananas at the local gas station (something I admire Michelle Obama for doing) because they cannot even drive to a supermarket.
Sending kids to private schools and saving for college is another Status symbol with the educated rich. Or investing in health. Something the median Income American can only dream of.
So, the assertion that the Educated elite, care more about other Americans or use Science to benefit the world at large, needs to be weighed against their petty action of creating a new Class of Elites.
This post seems completely irrelevant to your own thread, unless I’m missing some subtext in OP.
There really are big moneyed interests trying to sow doubt about Climate Change for example, and some of those scientists are shills for big oil, etc., just like there were scientists who will shills for big tobacco. Most educated people know that climate change is a real and possibly existential threat, but some have been misled by propaganda by moneyed interests.
I don’t know who is making money off the anti-vaccine craziness, but there’s certainly some anti-science bullshit there. However, that’s always been around – have you seen Dr. Strangelove? Remember the anti-fluoride guy?
I don’t see how breastfeeding or buying local is similar at all to those, though.
So the problem is not that educated, well-read people are anti-science. It’s not that they are anti-rational. If anything, they are more pro-science and pro-rationality than others. The problem is that like everyone else, they often don’t have the time to carefully examine the arguments for everything they do. They barely have time to examine all the arguments for and against all the candidates in the elections in which they are voting. They certainly don’t have the time to compare the environmental qualities in the food they can buy in a variety of places. They have more money on average. Like most people, they assume that classier places have better quality items. That’s a hasty and often incorrect assumption, but they don’t have the time to think carefully about it. So what they are doing comes across as being class-conscious. The bad things you’re complaining about are not primarily the fault of the average educated, well-read person, who is not likely to be one of the rich. Yes, the rich benefit from the inequality in our society. The problem is reducing inequality, not just promoting science and rationality.