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Comment by sjwalter | Hacker News Reader

What I want to know is how does this issue impact the notion that we all seem to buy into that we should "follow the science".

Scientists themselves have a hard time "following the science". Add to it the observation that when an issue is getting lots of attention outside of academia, then there are usually some really strong incentives (profit, prestige) associated with doing the science and applying it (e.g., epidemiological science during a global pandemic).

The question seems not to be about how can normal people "follow the science" but rather, why should normal people trust at all that any touted science is anything more than bullshit spouted by highly-motivated sophists?

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> why should normal people trust at all that any touted science is anything more than bullshit spouted by highly-motivated sophists?

In the current climate, frankly I think it's absurd that we're putting so much trust in science, or rather what it has become.

The fundamental problem is that science as in the method is absolutely worth putting your trust in, but a lot of what's sold as Science^TM has diverged from it far enough to be worthless. However, it still bears the same name and borrows its credibility. There are countless examples even from the places one would think to be the most trustworthy.

What science as in the method hinges on as opposed to Science^TM is verifiability. Disciplines that aren't easily verified suffer from the replication crisis to the point where it's basically synonymous. I would go as far as arguing that unless something has been verified several times it should be nothing more than a hypothesis. Note how popular science media are basically living off doing the opposite (though I don't think much better can be expected from the media honestly.)

Math and social sciences form the two ends of the verifiability (and reproducibility) scale. CS is close enough to math that it's not a dumpster fire like psychology but I would say we're still suffering a lot of BS research. To fix this we need actual rigor, more openness about the methods, and frankly, motivation to reproduce results.

I would just add that science and the scientific method are designed to be used in good faith. Science doesn't really withstand political manipulation. If you're a researcher interested in learning more about the universe, science provides a framework for questioning and testing ideas, and for using established ideas as a jumping off point for further advances. As soon as there are other motivations than learning, the answers that "science" provides basically become unknowable because the whole process, from what to study to how to interpret and report findings, becomes corrupted.

We need good politicians to negotiate a consensus on how we move forward in light of human desires and modern thinking about cause and effect. Pretending that "science" provides us with a way forward is abusing science for something it is not designed to do nor capable of doing.

I think this is a very important question. This is something that I struggle with.

I have read a lot of papers. I generally think science can be a force for good. I understand analytic methods developed by or used in papers from my field of interest. I generally believe that those methods are capable of answering important and interesting questions.

In my view, the problem is that you can't know if an article is good or bullshit until you sit with it for, say, at least 2 or 3 hours (some papers even more). And that is for someone with my background. I tried to do this same thing when I had an undergraduate level of education and it (a) took me a lot longer (at least 10x), and (b) I missed a lot of the mistakes/scams/lies that I would not miss now. (I'm sure I am not able to detect some bullshit even still.)

We should follow the good science. We should not follow the bullshit science. This sounds hard because science, being more technical, is harder to vet. But upon further reflection, it seems that society hasn't figured out how to deal with much simpler lies, either.

> But upon further reflection, it seems that society hasn't figured out how to deal with much simpler lies, either.

outside of your field how much of the BS papers can you catch? I know enough about computers that I could probably figure out at least some of it in that field (after spending 10x longer than someone who actually reads papers regularly), but give me a paper in something else and I'm not so sure.

It's also the norm in some fields to provide only high level info in the methods section, often without supplemental method details accompanying. This makes it even harder to tell if they did the work correctly, because usually half the methods are intermediate steps which don't have any results directly reported in the paper. In a perfect world those methods would be uniform across labs, but in practice they definitely are not, and it makes tracing down the source of honest replication differences a nightmare.

There's also no way to really know if the researcher entirely left out 10 other tests they tried that failed. Sometimes you can guess that it's a stretch because of the stupid categories they use (I'm reminded of those ESPN graphics that say things like "most home runs on a rainy Tuesday in June"). But it's harder to detect if someone straight up removes data points, repeats tests and reports only the nicest, etc.

So at some point you basically need to be an insider in the field so you hear the gossip about what doesn't replicate. Or if you have access to thousands of dollars to blow you could try a dozen different variations to try getting it to replicate yourself.

I think for something like COVID that is actively affecting many people, there should be funding explicitly for replicating studies, and some slots reserved in a prestigious journal for the findings of the replications. I get that it is not feasible to be replicating everything in science, but I don't see why we can't have ~one lab per relevant university department that specializes in replicating important studies. If you make that a path towards becoming a tenured prof I think that could change the culture surrounding replication studies in general.

I would assume the people saying "follow the science" generally don't mean "believe recent research publications".

I still occasionally see things like "hanging a potato to your wall will cure your child's flu" being debated by friends of friends on Facebook. You'd need to take a time machine several hundred years back for it to be within the realm of realm of genuine scientific debate.

You seem to be indicating the preferred time window for which research to trust. Not too new, not too old. Not the worst algorithm you could choose, and I agree. This is why I stay away from drugs, procedures, and any kind of guidance from the medical profession that is less than 20 years old.

This is exactly how I feel after being prescribed a drug as an adolescent that in fact made my condition worse. It was a very commonly prescribed anti-depressant that was eventually found to increase the risk of suicide in those under 18 years old. I was on the drug during the first decade after its release. It is no longer prescribed to minors.

Well, there is an easy way to see why basically every anti-depressant will somewhat increase the risk of suicide: many people suffering from depression are already thinking of suicide, but has no motivation even for that. Anti-depressants will try to alleviate the latter one so that the person can actually live their life, but unfortunately that occasionally will also make suicidal thoughts into attempts.

That’s why therapy is a must - the “buttons” drugs can press is simply not fine-grained enough in itself to manage depression.

Oof don't get me started on drugs. Flouroquinolone antibiotics have been causing disabling reactions since the 80s now. I suffered some severe side effects also and met hundreds of people in the same boat. I even met people who suffered from CFS, fibro, tendonitis and didn't know antibiotic could results in getting such condition and they took it shortly prior to onset of their illness(doesn't mean it is the drug, but frankly it should be looked at).

I have seen physicians at top hospitals. Nobody cares about the reaction to the drug but only about treating the current symptoms. I have heard maybe it was the drug, maybe it wasn't. My reaction was instant during a hospital visit. It makes me feel terribly uneasy, getting the word out there doesn't help me in anyway, it helps to protect other people, which frankly the government should be doing.

I honestly don't know how nobody thought maybe we should look at the data we have, look at medications patient took and then if they suffered from an illness within certain period of time.

There is a group who met with senators on flouroquinolone antibiotics.

FDA has updated the "black" label on the drugs multiple times. First with tendonitis issues, then depression/anxiety, now with possible permanent nervous system damage. Yet doctors remain completely uninformed and the drug is given out for 'suspected' UTI. EMA in Europe now recommends these drugs should only be used in life threatening infections.

Recently, a physician submitted a request to the FDA to require written patient consent to take the medication, due to possible side effects. FDA said due to covid they are unable to review it at this time.

I would suggest adding a feature to your algorithm, before taking a drug also look for groups of suffers. If there are many groups....you might want to take something older and safer.

We're indoctrinated from Kindergarten to trust the folks wearing the white lab coats. This is why the young push the "follow the science" stuff and the older generations are much more skeptical. The older people have been through several cycles of bullshit.

The first "big lie" I experienced is the food pyramid. This was a big government push in the schools that told us all to eat carbs like crazy. Turns out it was just pure corruption, paid for by the grains industry. They have killed literally millions of us with this lie alone. And there were no consequences for this. No one went to prison. At some point you have to ask yourself: "How many millions of people does the government/industry have to kill before we stop believing them?" For me, it was the first million who died of diabetes and other obesity related diseases.

I thought it would have other comments like yours. Yes, this and climate change research. Just look at the history of those research fields.

> we should "follow the science".

This is a clear misrepresentation of what science is and is not. Specifically, science is not normative.

Science will teach you how to build the bomb. It will never be able to tell you whether you should detonate it.

When people disagree about whether to detonate the bomb or not, one side may be able act like the predictable consequences automatically determine the ethical norms that should guide the decision while ignoring the implications of the unpredictable consequences. This side may attack the other side as "ignoring the science" in order to ignore the more difficult normative debate. A counter reaction to the initial unfair sleight of hand is sometimes to act like one should completely ignore the scientists anyways, and then maybe the accusation is more justified but still ultimately meaningless: norms are simply not grounded in facts. People also aren't necessarily consistent with their own norms. They might agree on some premises then when presented with conclusions that follow, just find the result so repugnant that they search for a way out. That's when we search for chinks in the science, because admitting to our own natural moral hypocrisy is just too painful. But we can always just change our basic norms and reach a different resulting decision and we know this in our gut, so searching for the facts to support a predetermined conclusion doesn't seem so different.

What is the alternative to following the science? Following people who are not scientists and who are explicitly making things up? This sounds a lot like "most plane crashes are due to pilot error, so maybe we should give non-pilots control of the planes."

I think it depends on the risk/reward of not following the science - as an example, there was debate about whether ibuprofen worsened the effects of COVID early in the pandemic. MGH basically came out and said that while the research was leaning towards ibuprofen being okay (and the WHO at that point had announced it was), they had plenty of acetaminophen available and no reason to doubt its safety for COVID patients. So they were going to stick with acetaminophen only for most patients.

Another COVID-related example is masks. At one point early in the pandemic there was messaging that masks were not useful in preventing the spread of COVID in the general public. There were supply chain reasons that probably motivated that message, but I also know virology PhD students that were insistent it was the truth, with papers in hand. At the time there were also papers to suggest the opposite, so one could have a healthy debate on the subject - but at the end of the day I gave my grandparents a small box of masks, because wearing a mask is so low effort I don't see why you wouldn't unless you are truly extremely certain that it's useless.

Unfortunately, the risk/reward equation is confounded by people who interpret any kind of public health measures as a slippery slope towards fascism.

Bad take. People are rightly wary of public health when public health openly discredits itself--you'd have to be an absolute imbecile to believe, e.g., covid was a huge risk during anti-lockdown protests, but was not at all a concern during BLM protests.

When did “public health openly discredit itself” in such a way?

Seems like the comment you are replying to contains an example.

Yes, I am asking for an example of when that happened.

It was very public news. Even the controversy was widely reported. I’m surprised you don’t know about it. In any case it should be easy to Google.

I think you are remembering incorrectly.

This kind of gaslighting is why nobody trusts authority any more.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/protests-and-trump-r...

Just one of MANY stories why BLM protests are so much less risky than, e.g., Trump rallies.

When it was widely rebuked as hypocritical bullshit, they even came up with a crazy way of explaining it away: Now racism was a "public health crisis", all of a sudden. See the google trends: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=r...

Just like how January 6 was an insurrection worthy of months of security state theatrics and proclamations that "white supremacy" is the biggest threat to the USA domestically, whereas an entire summer of burning buildings and riots was "mostly peaceful protests".

This is why nobody trusts authority and the media anymore--they have given up on even a pretense of seeming trustworthy.

Those are factual claims about the protests being less risky than the rallies. They’re either true or false. There’s nothing hypocritical here where anyone is saying it’s okay to attend one event and not the other because of the purpose of the event. It’s literally claiming that one event is outdoors and attendees tend to follow health guidelines, while the other event is indoors and attendees tend to not follow health guidelines. Is the claim false? Perhaps, and anyone is free to argue that. But this is nothing close to an example of the situation previously described.

> It’s literally claiming that one event is outdoors and attendees tend to follow health guidelines

Yes - and it’s not true - there is plenty of footage of protesters not following health guidelines, and indeed plenty of discussion of how the protests may have precipitated a covid spike.

The fact that other similar events were not permitted proves the hypocrisy in the public health guidance regardless of the outcome.

If you don’t think there is any political bias in public health policy, that’s fine, but it seems like we are in disagreement about that.

> If you don’t think there is any political bias in public health policy, that’s fine, but it seems like we are in disagreement about that.

This is a significant altering of the goal posts. But anyway, you seem convinced it's all part of some huge partisan battle where you're sure that your side is the good side and everything is stacked against your side. I'm not part of this battle.

> This is a significant altering of the goal posts.

Not really - it’s a matter of degree. When there is too much bias displayed, it stops being public health and is discredited.

> you seem convinced it's all part of some huge partisan battle where you're sure that your side is the good side and everything is stacked against your side.

This seems like pure imagination on your part. I suggest you reread the thread. You’ll see no evidence anything partisan from me.

I simply think that public health officials have undermined trust by politicizing the issues or otherwise distorted their message. I.e. they have ‘discredited’ the field as the other poster said.

> I'm not part of this battle.

Are you sure? You are the only one reading this conversation and seeing a ‘battle’.

Terrible take. Weariness is fine. Interpreting it as a step towards fascism is just individualism taken to it's empathy-less extreme.

Most of the time the computer flies the plane, and we're all safer for it.

The alternative that I choose is to have a fucking identity and constantly build up strength along every axis possible, yes even physical.

Be a rock. This doesn't mean be hard-headed and unpersuadable, but it also means not being lead around by statistics and citations and "studies". Know who you are, trust your instincts, and do what is right for you.

The fact is, unless you're actually the scientist doing the science, almost all the papers and publishing and Science The Meme! that happens and is constantly and endlessly touted, has zero bearing on your own personal life. Ignore it all.

In particular, when it comes to health science, you can literally ignore every little bit of it--none of that garbage gets in front of a wide audience unless it's got some profit for some concern at the other end. Know how to feed yourself and stay fit and healthy. Sure, you could use the NYTimes to determine whether a pescetarian diet is superior to a carnivore diet, or whether you should be eating highly-processed factory-produced fake meat and in what quantities, or you could just use your own common sense and your own body to do your own individual science--try carnivorous eating for a month, then vegan, see how you feel.

Be confident and ever-increasingly capable. Become more dangerous every day. Have an anchor that's ties your core values to who you are, however you define that, and let the rest of the masses get socially engineered into believing whatever the hell they want.

> Know how to feed yourself and stay fit and healthy.

Well, okay. I was kinda with you when you were saying you can ignore most health science headlines, but then you seem to change your mind and hint that there must be some way of gaining knowledge about one’s health without science. So how then? Common sense and personal experimentation are only going to get you so far.

Eat well. Sleep well. Exercise daily.

Are you seriously saying you can't figure out how to do these things without bullshit "studies"?

Get some weights. Ear high-quality meat. Sleep 8 hours. Tweak as necessary.

That gets 90% of people to ever-increasingly healthy.

You've been totally neutered if you think you need more than that.

>What is the alternative to following the science?

Actually it is not the science that is causing this issue. But research in various forms is.

Trusting science is fundamentally different from trusting "scientists".

Trusting science is essentially trusting nature to behave in a regular fashion. But trusting research, done and proclaimed by a bunch of humans is well, trusting human beings. Nothing could be more fundamentally different.

I think adding a "repeatability factor" to researches could help. So if anyone on the planet can replicate a research method, it should have a repeatability factor value of 1. If only a single entity can replicate it, then it should have a value of 0. If some entities can validate it, then it should have a value somewhere in between.

This does not mean that research that have low RF cannot be applied widely. It just that it will have to do additional work to gain the trust of the people.

It only follows common sense that trust in something cannot be mandated. So, measures that are based on low RF value research should NEVER be mandated. No matter what that cost.

And thus I think this can save the corruption and manipulation in the name of science.

Have a higher evidentiary threshold when it comes to results that contradict common-sense, or that suggest changing your current behaviour? Of course sometimes counterintuitive results turn out to be real, but most the time the "follow the science" people are getting prematurely excited.

I think the reverse direction is much worse, like anti-vaxx, and the general anti-intellectualism of the common.

Having lived a few years and witnessed "the science" change a number of times, I'd say that in my social circles (which are by no means representative of everyone) disproportionate trust in supposed scientific conclusions (particularly those that go against common sense) is a bigger problem than the reverse. E.g. official diet advice over the last few decades, or relative damage done by diesel vs petrol cars.

Follow the science is only used as a rhetorical device outside of science to try and convince people of something political. You would never hear an actual researcher say that.

There is a realistic, weaker statement about the best available information we have, that a specialist could use to explain to a non specialist why they are making a recommendation about something emerging or theoretical. But what we are hearing with "follow the science" really means follow the carefully crafted political message that politicians with scientific credentials have put out.

It's easy to see a distinction. Nobody needs to be told to follow the science on antibiotics or birth control or something. I think the blatant anti-intellectualism in the follow the science type statements is why we have so much worry about vaccines e.g. People aren't stupid and they can tell the difference between being manipulated and being presented with something objective. Even if you're right, it's a bad strategy to try and trick people or use religion to get your point across. See "the science is settled". Nothing makes people stop listening faster.

Edit: and ironically, people call those who don't "follow the science" anti-intellectuals, as if intellectuals take things on blind faith. Every time I hear mention of anti-intellectualism, I have to remember that people are referring to those that question official doctrine, as opposed to those who have framed religion as science to try and short circuit debate.

Totally agree. I do think most times I hear people saying "follow the science" they are saying it to someone that is being anti-intellectual. But at the same time the "follow the science" people usually give horrible counterarguments that contain straight up inaccuracies too. I don't know what annoys me more.

A fun one that circulated for awhile when the vaccines were first launching was "all vaccines are the same". They are decidedly not, and I don't think people are as stupid as that kind of messaging implies. It was weirdly taboo to say that you'd prefer a particular vaccine, even once we got to the point that there was enough stock to choose. It's true the clinical trial efficacy numbers shouldn't be literally compared to one another, but that doesn't mean we should pretend the vaccines are actually the same either. Somebody deciding to drive an extra hour so they can get an mRNA vaccine is not anti-science lmao.

Maybe it's a matter of perspective here. Any (tested) vaccine is better than no vaccine. So if you're just looking to be in a better state than no vaccine, then they are all equally effective at that. I have nothing to back up this theory other than knowing that it's common for nuance to get lost as things get repeated over and over, being distilled down to phrases that are easy to parrot and being twisted as details are misunderstood like a game of telephone.

I take issue with the entire concept that "normal" people can "follow the science".

Most scientific fields I know I can't follow because I don't have enough background. I love reading papers in the fields I have a base understanding to be able to get something out of. The idea the average person can follow all scientific fields with no background just doesn't make sense.

When I read language that says "follow the science" or "based on science" it is almost always using science as a rhetorical device and should not be trusted, period.

This is actually closer to medieval magic than science. The incantation "based on science" makes every piece bullshit "true".

Evidently, there is a serious problem with scientific literature and publications and how they are incentivized. On the other hand, we have scientific method, which is a well-defined and understood technique. The publications don't always follow it. They might be fraudulent or mistaken with good intention. Not everything labeled as science is science. I believe "following the science" is important when it's following scientific method, passed peer reviews, can be reproduced independently, etc. The rest is noise, and the problem is that it's difficult for many to differentiate.

I mostly see "follow the science" in regard to well-established and scientifically validated theories and practices, like the germ theory of medicine and its implications for hygiene, or the theory of immunology and vaccination.

"follow science" is just another way of saying "do as we say not as we do."

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