What an interesting quote. I've never considered science in this light but... it's true!
> populism
> noun
> 1. the political philosophy of the People's party.
> 2. (lowercase) any of various, often antiestablishment or anti-intellectual political movements or philosophies that offer unorthodox solutions or policies and appeal to the common person rather than according with traditional party or partisan ideologies.
> 3. (lowercase) grass-roots democracy; working-class activism; egalitarianism.
> 4. (lowercase) representation or extolling of the common person, the working class, the underdog, etc.: populism in the arts.
So no, I disagree that "only the first of those is correct".
Because of this, science is disseminated in the same way as religion, political action, superstition and gossip - an authority figure says something, and we take it as true. No differences. Same mechanism for all knowledge, correct or spurious.
Society has special mechanisms for science to be tested against reality every so often (especially through the PHD system of selecting authority figures). Knowledge from a 'scientific' authority is more likely to be based on objective fact than anything else. However, there is still massive scope for error, especially in what the public believes if something is mis-identified as a scientific fact.
I'm thinking things like dietary science. The public perception on what the science says seems to be somewhat malleable.
Especially when it comes to science this view is stupid: there is no scientific knowledge that is based on individual achievement. Newton already knew this: "standing on the shoulders of giants". In isolation, the smartest person in the world wouldn't be able even to start grasping what we already have in terms of scientific development, and the situation is even worse for scientists of the future. Exactly the same can be said of most technology fields such as computing. The whole idea that there is any individual merit outside of participation in the scientific and technological community is just baloney.
This doesn't mesh with the abortion issue. Or opposition to gay marriage.
Conservatism tends toward traditionalist communitarianism. There is a disdain for top down imposed collectivism but not for bottom up faith/family/community collectivism.
No and I don't think science is elitist either. Neil deGrasse Tyson said "The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it."
Robinson gets it pretty much exactly wrong or maybe he just doesn't understand what populism means.
Like a lot of things NdGT says, this is ridiculous. Science is not "true" for any value of "true" that makes sense. It is a process, the results of which may or may not accurately describe truth as we know it today.
NdGT thinks he is making science cool with his pithy quotes and his one-liners on Twitter showing how smart he is, but I fear he is doing long-term damage on how difficult science really is, and what the sausage factory really looks like behind the curtain.
(Source: Am a scientist with published papers who can't stand the industry sometimes)
Just to be clear, if I may ask: do you believe NdGT is causing people to believe that science isn't difficult?
> A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
aka "science advances one funeral at a time"
But of course the "entirely" is taking it way too far.