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The experts weigh in.
(lemmy.world)
TL;DR: People be dumb.
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this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2024
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We really need to stop calling it a theory, because the lowest common denominator has no clue what it actually means.
I understand why you're saying that, but I would say that scientific terms shouldn't be changed just to appeal to the lowest common denominator. That isn't science, that's PR.
Now we do have a lack of good science communicators. A lot of people don't like Neil DeGrasse-Tyson, although there seems to be less hate for Bill Nye. We sure could use a guy like Carl Sagan these days though. I think what Sagan really understood and was able to do in a way that people who came after him just couldn't replicate was getting people to understand science through the wonder of it all. To show them that the real universe is a far more interesting place than anything they might read in any book of fiction from thousands of years ago.
The article that was posted earlier today about how oil and gas firms are twisting scientists words to make “uncertainty” (which is a confidence interval, not “we’re not sure”) I’m pretty sure we need to stop using certain words. At this point, PR is a major part of scientists jobs. Just like managing communications is a major part of programmers jobs, even though there’s a huge belief that programmers can’t talk to others. I won’t hire someone who can’t work with nor communicate with others. The same should apply to scientists.
Scientists' words will always be twisted, regardless of what words they use. I agree that some words seem to sow confusion even within research fields, but I worry that attempting to change things may lead to an
A book that has really stuck with me is "Merchants of a Doubt", which looks at how often the muddying the waters comes from a handful of scientists, who are presumably getting paid a bunch to do so, but not in a way that's easy to debunk. The problem is that science is muddy by nature, so scientists learn how to wade through mud (ideally) and work around and through it. I'm of the belief that the way forward will require for science in general to become more accessible to people in general, because I think the epistemically privileged nature of science is deepening distrust i.e. we are taught to trust science(TM) and only scientists are allowed to challenge other scientists. This makes sense, but I think it fosters a sense of distrust in people who I honestly can't blame for feeling like the system doesn't care about them.
I'm feeling like maybe blind trust in institutions might just be an untenably bad situation, because I'm a scientist and I don't know whether scientific education in the model of "scientific communication happens when the Scientists(TM) come down from their ivory towers and gift the common folk with knowledge, who are not allowed to question or add to this knowledge, unless they become a member of Science(TM) (or they are a person to whom science is done to