Scientists Are Not Stupid!

I thoroughly enjoyed this post: "Scientists aren’t stupid, and science deniers are arrogant". It's from the site "The Logic Of Science", which is a blog I run across frequently but now I will be adding it to my regular reading list.  The main premise can be summed up in this quote:

"I have found that not only do people with no formal training in science think that they know more than the entire scientific community, but in almost every case, they think that there is a fundamental and obvious problem that essentially all scientists have either missed or are willfully ignoring."

As I read this, nearly every conversation I have had with a denier on Evolution, Climate Change, and even Tobacco could have been an example cited in this article.  How it usually works for me is they start with some simple fact, twist it around and try and use it to discredit and entire scientific discipline, and then defend it with amazing rationalizations that simply boggle my mind.

Two examples of their use of facts:  Climate Change v. the Little Ice Age and Evolution v. the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.  Conversations usually start with a brief explanation from Google or Wikipedia, which is usually fine.  Then they add in something heard from a very conservative source -- most often funded by an industry or special interest with a bone to pick with the science.   Commonly the Oil/Gas Industry or their funded 'think tank' the Heartland Institute when it comes to Climate Change, or a religious ministry like the Discovery Institute or Answers in Genesis when it comes to Evolution.

Once you start poking holes in their arguments, they veer away from their pseudo-facts and start rationalizing.  My favorite is the 'rice bowl' analogy.  If you are unfamiliar with the term, what it means is when someone jealously protecting a project or program.  It's believed to be from some Chinese or Japanese slang concerning losing your job -- i.e.: your method of providing for your family with staples, like food -- hence the use of 'rice'.  I've heard it many times in the military over the years.  It's also often expressed as 'defending your turf' as well.

If goes like this:  "Scientists are too busy protecting their jobs and sources of funding, so they dismiss evidence that opposes their self-interest."  There is a simple problem with this one.  While it's true job security is an objective of most working adults, what would happen to a scientist who succeeds in disproving something like Evolution?  Can you say 'Nobel Prize'?  Here's another quote from the article:

"Disproving evolution would result in me going down in history as one of the great minds of the 21st century. So, why haven’t I or any of the thousands of other ambitious young biologists published that evidence? Because it doesn’t exist! This idea that you have to blindly go along with the “dogma” to get anywhere in science is totally backwards. You don’t get grants to confirm things that everyone already knows. "

There is the fallacy in the argument, most scientists are not highly paid, in fact I make nearly twice the average salary of a climate scientist, and I am a computer programmer with a Master's.  Of course that data depends on a lot of things, like the exact position or even what part of the country they live in.  But no matter what data set you are looking at, climate scientists are not very highly paid.  If you look at a Biologist, or worse a Biology Teacher, their remuneration gets even lower.

Now, who do you think are scientists who make higher salaries?  Not the ones toeing some imaginary party line, but the ones making breakthroughs, discovering new things, developing new medicines and medical treatments.  So this 'protecting your turf' argument fails on many levels!  Plus you have to factor in that we are not just talking about scientists at one institution or location, but world-wide.  Think of how illogical to believe in a decades-long, multinational conspiracy of silence just so current scientists can keep their positions.

However, when you look at the people arguing against science, you really can't see the rice bowl protection going on?  Look at how climate science can impact profits of the current energy companies, you know the ones funding anti-climate change marketing material?  How about religious groups who are terrified of the impact real science might have on their congregations and donations?  And you think scientists are being defensive?

Conspiracies theories might be entertaining and fodder for idiotic television and radio shows, but when you look at the logic of them, they tend to be absurd.  One last quote from Logic of Science:

"Anytime that an argument requires you to think that the entire scientific community is hopelessly stupid, ignorant, incompetent, etc. you should be extremely skeptical. Scientists aren’t stupid, and if you think you have found something simple and obvious that all of them have missed, you are almost certainly wrong. It is the epitome of arrogance to think that a few minutes or even hours on Google have endowed you with a better understanding of science than the collective scientific community gained through countless years of training and experience."

Why is it so hard for too many people to recognize that training and experience count for a hell of a lot in the real world.  I wish one of them would look up computer programming on Google and see how well they would function doing my job, let alone one in physics or biology.  Would trust a dentist with your mouth who received such an 'education'?  Here's something fun to watch.