To ask to what extent you trust science?

[malificent7]

I work in a stem, hi tech field and regard myself as scientific, however I also acknowledge how it dosn't always get it right.
For example thalidomide resulted in disabilities, the atomic bomb opened a huge can of worms as did genetic engineering and cloning.
I also find testing on animals very problematic ( as well as the fact that it is not regarded as the best/ most thorough type of research...a systematic literature review is...and testing on humans surely yields more accurate results albiet totally unethical!!! ).
Pesticides help us produce more food but I suspect they are not grrat for us compared to organic food etc.
I also think chemotherapy and radiotherapy are awful, crude cancer treatments in tetms of side effects.
I think on one hand science has given us so much...electricity, medicine, space exploration etc but AI has opened up huge ethical concerns. People still don't trust vaccines or big pharma and we run the risk of loosing ancient wisdoms. Things like cryogenics for example are just plain weird.
Is science arrogant...in the sense that humans think we have all the answers or can it truly better us?

Just musing really as I know that COVID divided opinions further. Thought it might be an intetesting discussion.

Perhaps it is crude analysis...I work in Radiology not as a radiologist which could explain my lack of finese regarding my understanding!
But please lets not get personal....I wanted to spark an interesting discussion. I know lots of people who don't trust science...and Covid made it worse.

I trust in the scientific process. That doesn't mean I believe it is always applied appropriately or that it is infallible. I also don't trust all those who are involved in the application of science...AI being a prime example of this. On the whole I think science has brought humanity a long way, it is government, society and some other specific actors that have misused or misunderstood science in some contexts. But that doesn't undo all the good that has come.

Would ot have been the right thing to test a drug on apes that was used for morning sickness though? Whist distressing for pregnant ladies it is not cancer or akiller disease.

I spend a decent amount of time searching through scientific studies, articles, effectively producing literature reviews etc. I’m finding myself increasingly frustrated by what scientists are not doing - they found that x worked for y at wavelengths c,e,f, and declare this a success without convincing explanation why they apparently did not test wavelengths a,b,d,g… Or the quality of some descriptions - they tested “a plastic container a few mm thick” - what plastic? What is “a few mm”? I’m unsure how this hasn’t been picked up prior to publication.

Obviously funding is one big issue. Whether that funding arises from the public, private, or third sector, the end result is the same - to gain funding you need a track record of results and for your topic to be de rigueur.
Then there’s the funding of the journals themselves…

Overall though, I absolutely trust the scientific method. I think one just has to approach the review of studies with a critical eye and form one’s own conclusions.

I suggest thinking of science less as a set of facts (or purported facts) and more as a process. No one would claim that the current state of scientific knowledge is 100% correct but the scientific method means we should be taking more steps in the right direction (towards getting things right) than the wrong direction.

Also worth bearing in mind what science can and can’t tell us. Studies may show that a particular operation is safe and effective but that doesn’t mean that everyone having that operation will have the desired outcome. This isn’t always well-communicated.

I trust the scientific method as a means to advance knowledge. How that knowledge is shared and used/misused isn't intrinsic to science but to society, capitalism and human biases, strengths and failings.

I suppose my argument is more verging towards ethics now...but lets keep to science.

It is a bit of a strange post, you ask 'do you trust science' and then give examples of where scientific discoveries have resulted in negative outcomes as well as positives. Do you mean 'do you trust science to only ever do good?' It's like saying 'do you trust maths?' Because some numbers are less than others.

Absolutely, in future we will no doubt look back on current cancer treatments the way we look back on leeches

Er, leeches are still used - with good reason - in some therapies. Science has validated their efficacy.

Have RTFT to see quite how "ancient wisdoms" slid in, but they are as susceptible to the scientific method as any other claim someone might make.

If I have a grumble about science, it's that there are times when it isn't applied and should be.

From personal experience, it was an old wives tale that if a woman experienced heartburn during pregnancy, the baby would be born with a lot of hair. This was anecdotally confirmed by a lot of midwives I met, but poo-pooed by science.

UNTIL someone, somewhere (and I CBA to cite, it's Sunday 😀) discovered that the hormone that promotes hair growth in the foetus also happens to cause some sphincter muscles to weaken and it crosses the placenta. The stomach has a big sphincter at the top and if this weakens you get ..... heartburn !

Which explained why when a friend had her lad after suffering almost non stop heartburn, the full head of hair (which he never lost !) was hardly a surprise.

I wonder how much quicker that research and connection would have happened if men got pregnant ...

"Science" is a process, not a thing or a discovery. Science is how we create knowledge. Science is how we know what is true. It was science that proved that thalidomide caused birth defects. The mistakes we make with technology and medicine and genetics we make because of what we don't yet know.

Yes, I trust the process of science. I understand that the process of knowledge creation is buggy and sometimes there are terrible consequences to this. I also understand that the way to prevent and minimise this in the future is by increasing our knowledge.

we run the risk of loosing ancient wisdoms

Not true.
Science is very interested in ancient wisdom and in verifying if there is any truth in it. If not, it's not an ancient wisdom it's an Old Wives Tale

Science is a social process. And no, I'm very skeptical

Pesticides help us produce more food but I suspect they are not grrat for us compared to organic food etc.

This is a very broad-brush statement, for which there is very little evidence. Even the organic movement, in its official pronouncements at least, doesn't claim that an organically-grown peach or whatever is better for the person who eats it; the only claims they make (again, officially — the advertising standards people are watching) are in terms of the effects on the environment.

But without modern pesticides and chemical fertilisers there wouldn't be enough food for everyone in the world, by a long way, so organic is mostly a luxury for Western consumers. It's very hard to be vegan and eat organic, for example, since most organic food is grown with animal-based fertilisers — either abattoir waste or slurry/manure — which have their own issues for the environment, as well as being dependent on the existence of a meat/dairy based agriculture, which is not great for the environment. (I'm a hypocrite and eat meat, FWIW.)

These things are often more political than scientific. A few years ago there was a kerfuffle about those cute organic green beans that you can buy out of season at £4.50 for 200g because they're grown in Kenya. The climate change people pointed out that they can hardly be better for the planet simply by being "organic" given all the CO2 involved in flying them to the UK. They got together and reached a compromise, which is that these beans could be labelled as organic, despite the CO2, if they were also Fairtrade. Whatever that is, it isn't science.

"Ancient wisdoms", Jesus Christ. If there is actually any genuinely beneficial substance to those "ancient wisdoms", then science is how we'll find out, and they'll become modern practice. Like aspirin. If they're no better than placebo - and the placebo effect is incredible - then they have no substance to them and deserve to stay as woo.

The leech example is ancient wisdom...i love the fact that maggots are still used to clean put wounds in some circumstances ( so I have been told!).

We have nothing in common, biologically, to apes.

No they won't, wisdom involves values aswell as knowledge and science can not give us answers on the former. Science can build the bomb but it cannot tell us where or when or if to use it.

I’ve embraced all kinds of treatments I don’t really understand - vaccines, ADHD medication, weight loss injections - so I put faith in the data while accepting there’s always risk involved.

I do hate it when people think the pharmaceutical industry owns medicine and that anything that isn’t proven in a double blind gold blah blah blah study can’t possibly be effective though. But I don’t blame science for that!

I mean, given that thalidomide is now used to treat a range of cancers, particularly multiple myeloma, as well as leprosy...maybe?

I don't trust medical science much any more.

Although it saved my life on many occasions literally from birth - being 3 months premature, later in life having a emergency c-section, and emergency ectopic pregnancy surgery - I was injured permanently by an off label antipsychotic after a head injury and post concussion syndrome 9 years ago.... so it's been swings and roundabouts with me and my health. The number of doctors, supposedly trusted highly respected professionals, who have gaslighted me too, have been quite a few. I think I'm less trusting now of medication to help me now.

Of course, I was incredibly unlucky and am now subsequently a bit biased. But I still get the feeling all is not what it seems.

That's about ethics and ethical frameworks, which is in the realm of philosophy, not science. Scientific practice does indeed think a good deal about ethical practice and ethical research. When it comes to weapons development, that's a personal and a political issue, not a scientific one, and decisions have to be taken in the context of a realpolitik in which countries have defence needs. I don't recall that "ancient wisdom" had a great deal to say about that.

And evidence/scientific studies to show how toxic pesticides are on human health are certainly there. I think in some studies, it has shown to be a potential cause of diseases like Parkinson's. I can certainly attest to my symptoms becoming much worse when I've used flea spray for cats, which are similar to the way pesticides work. And I remember reading how the first antipsychotics were developed from insecticides. Food for thought 🤔

I think this minimising of female ill health is one of the biggest problems with modern medical science actually. I've read women on here who are suicidal or contemplating terminating a much wanted pregnancy because of HG. They absolutely deserve just as much medical rigor as cancer patients.

The Science!
Thats a very broad church, and I don’t think you can make blanket statements about it. For instance, I absolutely trust astronomy and astrophysics, it’s just learning about the universe. Do I trust medicine? That’s a trickier one, because while it has made massive improvements to the lot of humanity, such as the near eradication of certain diseases, it also has a history of embracing fads and making terrible mistakes. Yes, chemo and radiotherapy are brutal, but the much heralded immunotherapy has now shown to not be the nearly side effect free solution it promised to be, giving people inflammation problems such horrendous colitis.
As for ‘ancient wisdom’, such as what? Galenic medicine? Astrology? Trepanning? If it’s ancient and it works, such as geometry, then it’s just wisdom. Getting touched by the king to cure scrofula? That’s just bollox.

Some science is based on ancient wisdom. Aspirin and vaccinations off the top of my head.

Trouble is, it's difficult to discuss science as a singular entity because it wouldn't exist if humans didn't. It is shaped by humans at every level, and cannot be entirely separated from ethics, morals and money. Even if we hand everything over to AI, currently AI is informed by humans therefore still prone to human bias. If, big IF, an AI really does come about that can think "for itself" I will be giving Terminator 2 side eye and possibly digging a bunker.

The issue with the Covid narrative was little to do with actual science. It was mired in political grandstanding, disaster capitalism and media drama. I remember watching Chris Witty on the daily fraudcasts and thinking he looked like a man whose family were being held at gunpoint off camera.

One might think the majority of the population are complete idiots, but I reckon a slightly less apocalyptic approach would have helped allay some of the wilder conspiracy theories.

And here we are, a scant 4 years down the line "living with it". Yes, it's real, yes it killed lots of people, yes the vaccines protect some people, but overall the government's approach damaged so much, including some people's attitude to science.