If you dare to question science you are labelled uneducated?

[Clovesinmyorange]

As the title states.

I’m finding myself getting more and more angry at this attitude.
It’s the current ‘trend’ if you will, that if you dare to question science you are stupid or uneducated. Having some reservations about things, means you are completely wrong and an imbecile.

The worst thing to do in this situation is to tell ‘anti vaxxers’ or people who are hesitant about the vaccine that they are wrong or stupid. This will backfire greatly and it’s certainly not a way of winning them over. This exact thing happened with Brexit too…which is why we are where we are with that.

It’s usually left wing guardian readers (yes I read the guardian) but the same people who are usually very vocal about how supportive they are of other peoples ethics, beliefs and backgrounds.

We should all be questioning the science, you don't need to have PhD I order to do so. The issue is the mupppets who clearly want to undermine it with bullshit and causing confusion and misinformation. You only have to look at the 90 % of covid in ICU thread to see the lengths some will go to twist the truth.

I know someone who refuses to be vaccinated and again has various reasons for this. She looks constantly for reasons to latch onto which might support her reluctance. I have come to the conclusion that she is basically afraid of needles. In which case I would suggest that if this is the case then contracting COVID and ending up in ITU will subject her to a lot more than a pin prick. I spent time in ITU (not COVID) and I can tell you it is not a pleasant experience.

A recent Johns Hopkins study claims more than 250,000 people in the U.S. die every year from medical errors - other reports claim the numbers to be as high as 440,000. Thousands more have poor life outcomes after shitty operations - remember vaginal mesh? Many die and suffer at the hands of experts whom they trusted and whose science they did not question. Scientists are fallible - to suggest otherwise is a frankly irresponsible attitude.

It depends how you're questioning it I guess. If you want to know more like data, peer reviewed articles , information in general that's ok. If you're worried about things like long term side effects , or being that 1 in a million or whatever, that's ok. It has nothing to do with being uneducated and quite normal really.

If you're banging on about Bill Gates, fluorescent dye, microchips , 5g etc then you are uneducated.gullible and frankly quite vulnerable.

Often people are questioning things because they don’t understand what’s going on.
Sometimes there are differing opinions between the scientists.
For example I’ve read that most people would have natural immunity after they contract the infection which could possibly be for lifetime. This makes sense to me because it’s based on knowledge I’ve been taught through school and through my own experiences. If I dared to mention natural immunity a few months ago and have an opinion on it, I would’ve got jumped on but now it’s being recognised for up to a year in some places. Maybe it’ll be 2 years next year when there’s more data, and 3 later etc.
There are scientists who are against the vaccines for children. Are we allowed to have the same opinion just from the what we know from our own experiences or is that uneducated?

DH watched Strictly for the first time ever; he has always staunchly resisted it. And he has voted for Rose. I am certain Rose will win.

@Wondering1000

A recent Johns Hopkins study claims more than 250,000 people in the U.S. die every year from medical errors - other reports claim the numbers to be as high as 440,000. Thousands more have poor life outcomes after shitty operations - remember vaginal mesh? Many die and suffer at the hands of experts whom they trusted and whose science they did not question. Scientists are fallible - to suggest otherwise is a frankly irresponsible attitude.

250,000? How many of those will die from reactions to anaesthesia or other complications? Your example doesn’t hold water.

Yikes wrong thread! sorry.

janis although I thought that I actually thought yours was a great a subtle and very funny quiet example of personal experience extrapolated out into a scientific ‘truth’. Bizarrely on trend !?

Covid is currently the most researched disease and the vaccine the most researched vaccine ever, in part due to the urgency created by the pandemic and the huge amount of data created by mass infection and vaccination. It has happened quickly, but the circumstances around the pandemic have led to a research opportunity like none before.

No other vaccine that you’ve been given over your life has been researched like it.

I mostly respect people’s right to be unvaccinated but equally I have no issues with vaccine passports as we need to drag ourselves out of this half lockdown/half free spiral we’ve found ourselves in.

I don’t however respect their right to disseminate misinformation that isn’t backed up by robust research.

YABU Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts and not all opinions are equal. If you exhibit a complete inability to understand any of the science or mathematics behind the pandemic, even after 18 months of it, or blunder around whining that "Boris said it would be all over in 3 weeks", or get all your science from Facebook people are entitled to not take you seriously. If anything I'm amazed how patiently many on here are prepared to explain and re-explain things to the terminally stupid.

@Clovesinmyorange

As the title states.

I’m finding myself getting more and more angry at this attitude.
It’s the current ‘trend’ if you will, that if you dare to question science you are stupid or uneducated. Having some reservations about things, means you are completely wrong and an imbecile.

The worst thing to do in this situation is to tell ‘anti vaxxers’ or people who are hesitant about the vaccine that they are wrong or stupid. This will backfire greatly and it’s certainly not a way of winning them over. This exact thing happened with Brexit too…which is why we are where we are with that.

It’s usually left wing guardian readers (yes I read the guardian) but the same people who are usually very vocal about how supportive they are of other peoples ethics, beliefs and backgrounds.

Questioning science as a Master's student of science isn't looked down on.

If you don't want to be seen as uneducated, perhaps you could study and then speak from a point of expertise.

I am currently myself studying for an MSc as my first degree was in the arts.

This will help me better evaluate and critique scientific reporting.

I was meaning that questioning science shouldn’t be necessarily seen as a bad thing. Of course scientists and epidemiologists are trained and educated in that specific field, but they’re still only human

On the one hand, I get it. Everybody is entitled to evaluate the available evidence and make their own decision. Whilst I am strongly pro vaccination, I am also strongly pro anybody's rights to decline a vaccine.

The difficulty is that Average Joe Public really does not understand "the science" well enough to be able to make sense of it without help interpreting it from highly qualified experts, but they think their interpretation of information carries the same weight as those experts. Add in the age of social media, and we have a population who thinks that a you tube video carries the same weight of evidence as a peer reviewed 3* paper.

Science is all about questions, its ignoring science but willingly believing some bloke on Youtube because he tells you what you want to hear that is stupid and uneducated.

The vaccination rate in the UK is over 80% which is pretty good really when we have had over a decade of government determined to stamp out critical thinking and sow mistrust in experts. I would expect a fair whack of that is teens and people who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons.

I think parts of the problem are:

1. some people refusing are actually taking utter claptrap (vaccine is a tracking chip, it has been sent by devil to mark victims etc) so other people refusing for other reasons might be categorised with the crackpots. I mean even if it were a chip, the govt is welcome to track me to Tesco.

2. that these days, once social media and often the left decides what is the “correct” view, it seems ok to persecute people who don’t share that view.

I question science all the time. Because I'm a scientist.
And no one has ever called me uneducated for it, because I articulate my points methodically, and rely on solid logic and sound evidence. Being absurdly numerate also helps.

However, a lot of people "questioning science" are stupid and uneducated. I know because I'm smart and educated and I can tell their knowledge is seriously lacking, their sources are dubious, and their arguments make no sense.

I have a lot of sympathy for sceptics, though, even stupid and uneducated ones. There is something refreshing about not blindly accepting official narratives just because they comes from an authority figure. Shame the same scepticism is not applied when absorbing (and regurgitating) information from bogus sources.

I mean, I have an undergrad degree in biology. I understand how to appraise scientific evidence. I absolutely do not fully understand the majority of vaccine and virus papers, because I'm not highly or specialist qualified enough, nor do I wish to spend the time and effort to do my own literature review. This is why I as a lay person tend to look at somebody's qualifications and then listen to their interpretation. I like to follow the Canadian chief scientific advisor, and "your local friendly epidemiologist" on Facebook, as I have looked at their qualifications and believe them to know what they're talking about and to not have political agendas.

Compare somebody like me with somebody who primarily thinks of scientists as "yeah but scientists get it wrong because they're only human" who gets their "science" from memes, articles written by unknown authors on Facebook and who knows what conspiracy theorist you tube videos, and with respect the quality of the information let alone the conclusions we will draw WILL be so widely different that they are incomparable.

You are not being unreasonable as unfortunately scientists do make mistakes and have at times behaved very unethically. For example in 2004 Merck pulled an arthiritis drug Vioxx from the market due to safety concerns and it was linked to 120,000 severe cardiac events and 40,000 deaths. Merck were then found to have removed evidence of 3 heart attacks from a dataset. We are finding out new things about the Covid vaccines all the time. For example, today it's been reported that 100 days after the Astra Zeneca vaccine you have zero protection against Omicron (Daily Mail). With the situation changing so rapidly, I personally think it's more unintelligent not to keep an open and questioning mindset!

Anti vaxers are always the ones quoting ‘science’ to back up their claims. The problem being that they generally read it on some nut-jobs social media page and it has no basis in reality, just made up nonsense for clicks. They call others sheep and gullible when it’s face it is them who are. It’s actually funny seeing their angry faces spitting about how it is a massive conspiracy that all the doctors in the world are in on apart from a few discredited ones of course.

Asking questions is fine, if you are willing to accept that sometimes the answer might not be the one you hoped for.

@Scottishgirl85

Are you a scientist, OP? I am, and I work for one of the big pharma that produced one of the vaccines. I welcome scientific debate, after all, it is how we achieve innovation. But this needs to be grounded on scientific expertise and evidence. There is a large proportion of the population who suddenly believe they have this expertise (which takes decades to achieve). It is this aspect that I have no time for. Although I will happily explain scientific rationale to those who are interested.

You make me feel a bit better. I did a STEM subject at undergraduate, I'm doing an MSc and I still struggle with research methods and critical appraisal.

Do you think the problem is that some people do not want the vaccines for the sake of the greater good? Or to Save the NHS? After all it is a virus than many could survived.

May be some people were expecting to have immunity for longer than three to 6 months? May be people never had to inject three doses before with any vaccines? May it is not questioning science but wondering if the research is ongoing so some prefer to wait and see? May be they do not want young kids to commit to vaccines and endless boosters they do not need so young? What can the scientists in the threat tell a lay person on these questions?

The whole point of science is to question.

I think that there is a difference between questioning the science without listening to an explanation and asking questions to understand things better.