Public Perception of Science

[FirstAscent]

Furthermore, I judge you as having very limited knowledge about climate science in general, as evident by your own admission of having no general knowledge of things going in the natural world - for example, the record breaking ice melt in the Arctic this year.

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[bb113]

ok:

From what I have observed most public debate regarding science revolves around two issues:

1) Climate Change due to human influence on the environment
2) Evolution of life on Earth due to long term natural selection
How do you determine what to believe (or not) regarding these theories?
What kind of evidence would convince you to change your mind?
Why do you place trust (or not) in the consensus of the experts in these fields?
Given infinite resources, how would you determine the "truth"?

Where do I make any claims about climate science in general? This thread is about public perception of science and what the determinants are. If you don't wish to talk about that please explain why?

[Rob E]

From what I have observed most public debate regarding science revolves around two issues:

1) Climate Change due to human influence on the environment
2) Evolution of life on Earth due to long term natural selection

How do you determine what to believe (or not) regarding these theories?
What kind of evidence would convince you to change your mind?
Why do you place trust (or not) in the consensus of the experts in these fields?
Given infinite resources, how would you determine the "truth"?

No idea if anybody thought of this before, but how about just apply the scientific-method ? Essentially what im suggesting here, is to do opposite of what unscientific "career-scientists" such as Richard Dawkins is doing.

This> You try to prove wrong whatever you tried to believe. = science
Not this> You try to prove whatever you believe to be right. = religion

You could, but it may be time consuming and expensive. Lets take a simple example, convince yourself (or at least design experiments you can plausibly do at home) that gravity has anything to do with mass without any circular logic. Its actually a good exercise for realizing the confusing web of theory, data, and logic that scientists rely on in reality. There are hidden assumptions everywhere. Usually they are recognized by the original proponents, then moved to footnotes by later authors, and finally forgotten altogether leading to "laws".

Also there are many who argue that much of what is commonly taken as "science" is actually not due to the fact that scientists often try to "disprove" strawman null hypotheses rather than disprove (or even make any) predictions.

I really like that post  . .  That is  awesome ..    

[hashman]

1) Climate Change due to human influence on the environment

This one's pretty easy.  Lets begin an experiment by opening our eyes.  Perhaps we can see asphalt, dams, buildings, agricultural land?  Roads?  Houses?  That's all due to humans.  Now adjust the "climate control" knob and notice the effect in your room.. so I think you will agree, humans can affect our climate. 

The interesting questions are in the details.  How fast are our species becoming extinct and what does it mean for our survival?  What is all this extra CO2 in the air going to do?  How much longer can we visit Venice?  By what date will middle USA be a desert?  Could we reverse that trend?  What changes will occur in the oceans that will affect us now that we have killed off almost all the large fish?   

2) Evolution of life on Earth due to long term natural selection

You gotta love people who claim they don't believe in evolution.  Literally this means you don't believe that time passes.  Actually things move, the Earth rotates, things change, and it's called evolution.  Life changes, it can be observed on short time scales in the lab or the greenhouse or on large time scales by looking at the fossil record.

There are certainly many puzzing questions and mysteries about biological evolution, but I feel this is a rant already  

[bb113]

1) Climate Change due to human influence on the environment

This one's pretty easy.  Lets begin an experiment by opening our eyes.  Perhaps we can see asphalt, dams, buildings, agricultural land?  Roads?  Houses?  That's all due to humans.  Now adjust the "climate control" knob and notice the effect in your room.. so I think you will agree, humans can affect our climate. 

The interesting questions are in the details.  How fast are our species becoming extinct and what does it mean for our survival?  What is all this extra CO2 in the air going to do?  How much longer can we visit Venice?  By what date will middle USA be a desert?  Could we reverse that trend?  What changes will occur in the oceans that will affect us now that we have killed off almost all the large fish?   

2) Evolution of life on Earth due to long term natural selection

You gotta love people who claim they don't believe in evolution.  Literally this means you don't believe that time passes.  Actually things move, the Earth rotates, things change, and it's called evolution.  Life changes, it can be observed on short time scales in the lab or the greenhouse or on large time scales by looking at the fossil record.

There are certainly many puzzing questions and mysteries about biological evolution, but I feel this is a rant already  

I wouldn't visit venice if I were you. Its just a huge rat maze.