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Comment by tenaciousDaniel | Hacker News Reader

You don't need to dig into philosophy and start talking about Karl Popper in order to explain the problem with "trusting the science".

Science is and will always be our best shot at being correct about the universe, but it's performed by imperfect humans. There's very little we can know for certain, so we have to pick our poison - either trust strangers who claim to have done their research, or trust our own fallible instincts.

I don't think there's a single correct answer to that question, but don't pretend like you're not choosing a poison. These "I believe in science" mantras are no more scientific than any other attitude.

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I don’t understand why you think your instincts would be just as valid an option? I mean if you’re accepting people can be wrong then assuming you’re more correct than large numbers of other people trying to find the truth seems obviously flawed.

Sure science is flawed, but we don’t have a better option to fall back to. Consider people strongly objected to seatbelts and we still need to promote their use. Trusting your instincts means wallowing in exactly that kind of ignorance.

Edited: before comments.

We need both people who trust experts above their instincts and instincts above the experts. And since we need both you need to consider both behaviours just as valid.

The problem with experts is that often they became experts by just trusting other experts, and going back the chain a bit all of that was just based on a single persons opinion a century ago.

[citation needed]

What you’re describing isn’t science. I think people forget is how new all this is, plate tectonics for example didn’t exist 100 years ago.

Sure some old ideas are still around, but they have also been put to the test.

It's an interesting question. If those "large numbers of other people" were also following their own intuitions, you would have a strong point. However, if that large number of others was simply exhibiting groupthink, it significantly weakens your counterargument.

I don't think your comment addresses what I actually said. I wrote that I don't think there's a single correct answer to the question of "trust the experts or my own instinct" that applies to all situations. Your example about seatbelts is simply an example of a scenario in which you would likely want to defer to expert opinion.

edit: Also, the case of seatbelts vs no-seatbelts is a fairly easy example, because the evidence is readily available through life experience. I think most people know someone who was injured or killed by not wearing one (I knew a few). So you don't even need to refer to an expert opinion to make that call.

The point is there is nothing obvious about a wrong instinctive reaction to the people making them. 10% of Americans still don’t use seatbelts, it’s really really dumb yet still that common.

Now imagine anything even slightly less ambitious and think are my instincts going to be accurate or should I look into the actual research? Saying anything other than research is simply unjustifiable.

Again, I am not saying that instinct is better than research, I'm saying that just because something has been "researched" does not mean that it's true.

If there were research showing that putting certain plastics in the microwave were shown not to be harmful to humans, it wouldn't make a difference to me, because I still don't feel comfortable putting any kind of plastic in the microwave.

Which is exactly the same fallacy as not using your seatbelt, instincts are simply less accurate.

While being overly cautious tends to have minimal penalties. Letting superstition reduce the quality of your life is still making an objectively poor choice.

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