This might be heresy, but I feel like saying that "science isn't truth, it's the search for truth", and "if you disagree it's not a disagreement, you're just wrong" is internally inconsistent.

I once had a colleague who was raised to live by the bible, never questioning it. He was also a massive shitposter. No matter what dumb shit he said, he'd always say that it was just a joke.

Well, one of the few times when I genuinely caught him off guard, was when I explained that science did not actually claim to know the one and only truth. That it wanted to be proven wrong.

I think, that idea itself conflicted with his whole world view. Like, I imagine, his parents also raised him to never question their authority.

As a young scientist who's yet to gain PhD:

Absolutely do challenge scientists, no matter your qualification. Sometimes (granted, that's rare) you might be right.

Just do it in a respectful way and make sure you check your arguments.

Also, while scientists are generally more educated overall, they can absolutely be foolish in what falls outside their scope. "I'm a scientist" is not a valid argument.

And yes, always check for a conflict of interest.

It’s not entirely wrong. There is absolutely a bias in what gets studied simply because it requires money to be given to study most things. For example, it’s why some more natural remedies like taking fish oil to help lower cholesterol took so long to have actual scientific backing; there’s no money in widely available remedies so finding funding to do the study was difficult.

You can see this really clearly if you look at more politicized areas, like economics. And for what it’s worth, it doesn’t mean that the evidence that’s generated is bad (although the conclusions drawn from it may be), but that it results in a lack of evidence for opposing viewpoints.

The part which annoys me is about intentions.

Sure, lobby groups do pay off some people with a PhD to lie for them (Patrick Moore), that's not up for debate.

But to imply that this is the norm is just ignorant of how research is conducted.

Most scientists are either employed by a company, working towards a very specific, non contentious goal (like developing cold fusion), or are involved in research at a university, paid for in grants by their government to research whatever has been approved as worthy of investigation.

Nobody is pressuring these researchers to find evidence to support any particular agenda, the chips land where they fall. There's no fat cat smoking a cigar telling the climate science team at their local university that they need to find more evidence to crash the petrol stocks so they can sell more solar panels.

I agree with

Science is not truth. Science is finding the truth.

That being said, you certainly can disagree with a scientific outcome. Good science relies on such types of discussions. If someone has a disagreement, then, by all means, please conduct an experiment to show that it's wrong, or express your opinion and be open to discussion.

I mean... Science does sometimes lie. Plenty of research papers out there with fudged results or questionable methodology. Also the fact that scientists don't always agree with each other on things.

You should always question authority. Just don't question the truth once it's actually been proven.

While conflicts of interest can and do exist, a lot of, if not most, science is done by grad students who are just trying to get their degree and are really there because they are passionate about discovering new things more than anything else.

"The Science is settled" and "I believe in Science" are both equally frightening sentences.

That's literally the opposite of what "theory" means in a scientific context. You know nothing of science and your opinion is wrong.

Sure, science is great and has lead to several great advancements. Science is done by people.

People will lie, cheat, and steal.

Big little lies: a compendium and simulation of p-hacking strategies

In an academic system that promotes a ‘publish or perish’ culture, researchers are incentivized to exploit degrees of freedom in their design, analysis and reporting practices to obtain publishable outcomes [1]. In many empirical research fields, the widespread use of such questionable research practices has damaged the credibility of research results [2–5].

Wiley's 'fake science' scandal is just the latest chapter in a broader crisis of trust universities must address

A recent Retraction Watch investigation allegedly identified more than 30 such editors, and kickbacks of as much as US$20,000. Academic publisher Elsevier has confirmed its editors are offered cash to accept manuscripts every single week. The British regulator said in January that one unnamed publisher "had to sack 300 editors for manipulative behaviour".

AI Chatbots Have Thoroughly Infiltrated Scientific Publishing

At least 60,000 papers—slightly more than 1 percent of all scientific articles published globally last year—may have used an LLM, according to Gray’s analysis, which was released on the preprint server arXiv.org and has yet to be peer-reviewed

It's important not deify science instead realize that it has issues. We should address those issues to help science become the ideals that we want believe science to have.

Edit: Missed a word

Science is not the truth. Science is a mechanism for finding the truth.

I don't think a study like "Aspartame is actually super good for you and makes you run faster" funded by the "American Beverage Association" would ever make it to Theory status, and even concieving of such a silly notion reveals widespread misunderstanding of what a theory is.

Ok but there’s a given value of this. I have a friend with a PhD in hpv. On matters of hpv I’m definitely wrong if I’m arguing with her, and same for any matter of microbiology or virology. I’m probably wrong in any argument with her about any biology. But when we start talking physics? Nah I’m an engineer and she studies a cancer virus. I’m more likely to be right about how electricity works. Astrophysics though? We might as well be art majors.

Companies**. Also, the word they're looking for is hypothesis, not theory.

The comment has some merit, some. Look at low fat foods and sugar for instance.

But I'll be honest, there's no "big science" I went to grad school for physics, taught physics, fuck publish or perish.

I now make a fuckton of money writing code and designing algorithms. Haven't published in over a decade.

Yes, science is about finding the truth, but we should relish the chance to challenge it. If it holds up, that only strengthens the argument for it. If it doesn’t, everyone learned something new.

Big Gravity clearly paying folks to say stuff falls down so they can sell more floors.

The kernel of truth here is that the disclosure of funding sources is an important factor when weighing scientific evidence.

No one’s a winner in this exchange.

In my ethics course during the phd program, I was told this was actually a good thing. Their example was pharma companies know how to use their drugs better so they get better results, more true results. If that was true, it's unfortunate it's not the pharma company that also handles treatments then. That course also said that software patents does not exist as a concept.