If scientists want to educate the public, they should start by listening
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I object to the terminology. Just because someone is cherry-picking information to support their chosen ideology doesn't make them "not ignorant". It makes them willfully ignorant.
Part of the problem with American political discourse is that we don't do enough to marginalize non-factual arguments -- from both sides of the political spectrum. Pretending that people aren't "ignorant" if they're filtering facts through a political sieve doesn't address this problem. Everyone has freedom of expression in the US, but we should all be doing more to make it plainly clear that some types of content are inferior to others.
I agree completely with your point that a college degree has limited impact on your scientific literacy. Taking baby-bio or physics for poets isn't going to give you the tools necessary to churn through scientific papers, nor will it give you perfect objectivity when evaluating scientific arguments, particularly volatile ones that challenge your own core beliefs.
I fall into that camp. My time in college impressed upon me how human and fallible the academy is. I went in thinking "professors" had all the answers. Then I met enough people who were stealing funds, sleeping with students, lazily grading papers, exploiting free labor and jealously hording grant money, that I realized these were just people, prone to the same errors in judgment that everyone else deals with.
I don't understand how this is relevant to the discussion. No one has ever claimed that scientists are all-knowing or super-human or somehow not subject to the cognitive defects endemic to all human brains.
But just because scientists are human and make mistakes does not mean that their claims about scientific matters are wrong. I mean, my attorney is a human guy who makes typical human mistakes, but when it comes to giving me legal advice, he's a hell of a lot better than the average person. His expertise is beneficial even though he sometimes forgets things or gets confused or gets angry or suffers from status quo bias. All those problems mean that I should exercise some judgment while considering his advice, but statistically, his advice is still much better than what I could come up with on my own.
Much like you're trying to do by insinuating that all scientists/professors are lazy, greedy, exploitative thieves who shag their students.
First, we have a more educated populace globally (not just in the US) - this leads to more confidence in our own opinions, and when combined with "the university of Google" and trusting everything one reads on the internet you'll get echo-chambers of likemindedness repeatedly referring to each other. We tend to believe things that we hear over and over. Add in the lack of accountability within the media to appropriately question all claims from all sides in a scientific manner and you can easily become highly insular in your views and opinions.
Secondly - science has moved on in ways unfathomable a century ago - a time where the wealthy could afford an education and those without could not (and hence trusted those with an education more, although you can also claim that corporations have also lessened the trust in anyone too). The sciences today are so incredibly complex that the scientific community has the option to either: a) dumb it down; or b) dumb it down. The problem there is that when you simplify science, you lose some of the details and open yourself up for cherry-picking critique. Add in the issue that most science is now not black-or-white (something that the conservative in everyone prefers) but rather is based on probability (yes, I know all about the black swan events that through out prior observations, however scientific method requires repeatability) - irrespective of whether or not the lifestyle that they currently live is based on such approaches. Add in the proud to be innumerate and scientifically illiterate and you've got some major problems. Mix in that science now looks like religion to the lay person, due to the complexity and lack of comprehension, and you're going to have big problems.
What is the scientific community to do? I'm not sure. We need to change the perception of science in the community. We need to educate people on the scientific method (even though there are many in the hardcore religious groups who oppose it). Then we need to build a better grounding in science for the next generation and make it valued in the same way that the financial and legal sectors are. After all - they're all dependent on the discoveries for their own operations.
In other words, if you're the kind of person who believes that either climate change is no big deal or that there is nothing that humans can do about it, then it doesn't matter at all. Alternatively, if you think climate change is a big deal and that humans can do something about it, then public understanding of science matters because altering it might kill/save a few hundred million people. Do you think the lives of a few hundred million human beings matter?
Don't think of it as a big, scary, nebulous concept like "justice", though. Call it what it is: game design. The body of law is the game that every citizen of a country is always playing, and like any game, you can encourage paths to be followed, and choices to be made, by putting variable-scheduled rewards and increasing "justified" challenges along those paths.
The only people who need to understand the "public policy questions", in a world where public policy is set up as law, are the legislators (the "game designers"). This is simply an argument for better-educated legislators, not a better-educated populace.
The real issue is that if 30-60% of the population thinks climate change is bunk, there's no way to make them care with carrots and sticks because opposing them becomes politically difficult.
The only people who need to understand the "public policy questions", in a world where public policy is set up as law, are the legislators (the "game designers"). This is simply an argument for better-educated legislators, not a better-educated populace.
I don't think this is true at all. Legislators do not have absolute freedom to legislate, even on topics for which the public is ignorant. Such topics can be demagogued which means that they're politically toxic to legislators, even for legislators that understand the issues completely.
If I'm a legislator who is convinced that climate change is a huge problem but I also know that most of my constituents don't believe that, then I'd better not vote for a carbon tax or else I'll lose the next election. Those incentives remain true no matter how much I understand the public policy. It is true that we don't need everyone to fully understand all public policy, but we do need a decent fraction of the population to understand the big issues well enough to make addressing them politically feasible.
There's no real correlation between what the populace believes, and what its elected representatives believe. (Well, there would be if we were all purely rational beings who hadn't invented lying and adhered to Aumann's agreement theorem...) In algorithmic terms—this isn't a hill-climbing heuristic, where you'll eventually optimize toward politicians that believe something in particular; it's a random search.
Maybe, maybe not. But there is a very real correlation between what the populace believes and what laws legislators can vote for without ruining their chances for reelection. Legislators who vote for things that the majority of their constituents find to be completely absurd tend not to be reelected.
Relevant to the article, herd immunity is compromised by those misinformed about vaccine safety.
I've never really understood why anyone cares about who believes what when it comes to topics in science. You can't advance in a career in the sciences without accepting on some terms evolution by means of natural selection so who cares if a bunch of people don't agree?
I'm sort of amazed at the arrogance on display by those who seem bent on making sure everyone agrees with them. It seems like we would be served well by some degree of skepticism of the bishops and the scientific establishment (in all areas). It seems like the more we know the more we lose sight of what we still don't know and don't proceed with much humility.
For my part I'm skeptical of the claims of biologists, mainstream economists, climatologists, and those who offer financial advice. I don't take a strong position on evolution one way or another because the outcome doesn't affect me in any way. I might get made fun of behind my back for doubting these people but that's fine by me.
I also didn't take any losses in the latest stock market crash because I saw it coming three years ahead of time and was safely in cash waiting for the market to figure out what I already knew. I take strong positions on economics because the outcome can really affect me and my family. I might be wrong of course but at least I'm going in with my eyes open.
You're just fine with having the next generation of schoolkids taught that "God Did It (or maybe aliens)" is the only acceptable explanation for the origin of life, then? Because this fight started with religious zealots trying to prosecute teachers for going against scripture, and it's hard to have any doubt that the clowns pushing Intelligent Design would do something similar if people stopped smacking them down. It might not matter to you whether evolution is right or not, but that's not what the fight is about - the fight is about whether or not scientists should have to poll the idiocracy and make sure they won't offend them before reporting their findings.
And yes, I'm arguing slippery slope, maybe - but the argument in favor of worry is a lot more compelling when we've just finished clawing our way up from the bottom.
It seems like the more we know the more we lose sight of what we still don't know and don't proceed with much humility.
Absolutely. And with climate science, I'd tend to agree with you, we don't know all that much and might want to be careful about how much we trust the preliminary findings - the data appears to be messy, incomplete, and difficult to work with, and the field started out so highly politicized that it's hard to know who to trust.
Evolution, on the other hand, is not even in the same ballpark - evidence is plentiful, it all agrees with the theory, and consensus is overwhelming (and one big difference between bio and climate science is that biologists don't tend to go into biology because of political leanings, so there's far less selection bias amongst researchers).
I'm amazed by the continuing influence of Marx and other socialist philosophers even though we have theories rooted in Platonic arguments and empirical observation that are fairly one sided in their analysis of the subject. It disturbs me greatly that schools teach Keynesian economics and that Paul Krugman has more distribution than what a blog would provide him. I'm disturbed by the success of the Neocons and their apparent love for war.
All that being said I move on with my life. I realize that the best I can is argue my case and if I fail then that's fine. Ideas aren't as important as life and the people in it.
It is absolutely important to care what others' think when it comes to topics in science. We live in a society, and others' views and ideas unfortunately will most likely impact people other than themselves. People are free to be as ignorant as they want in isolation, but the moment they start affecting policy, we should care.
Because we're afraid that that could change.
They do?