It’s absurd this administration can now just say “we used science” and not be held accountable for the bald faced lies.
how often is there an HN post linking to a paper about some great new battery technology?
When the in-group fails to police itself sufficiently, it is inevitable that the out-group will do so coarsely.
The topics you are alluding to are usually novel, complex, changing, and subject to healthy debate. They are quite different.
I agree there is an aspect of belief amongst lay persons that they both share which i feel is the more subtle but valid aspect of your argument, but separating it from the initial part of my comment i feel invalidates its usefulness.
The two use cases of the words are not the same:
1. belief: a world view that exists without needing external validation (i.e., "faith")
2. belief: an understanding of some kind, based on some collection of evidence
Though I'd actually use a different definition still:
3. belief: an idea upon which you have the confidence to actInstead, I'll offer some general questions that can be answered without experiments, only research.
For each faith X:
0. Note that each line depends on previous lines.
1. Who and what defines X-ism?
2. How exactly do you determine if someone is an X-ist?
3. What immediate claims does X-ism make about you, me, X-ists, non-X-ists, people at large, the world in general, etc.
4. What are the greater (long-term, conceptual, metaphysical, etc.) implications of 3?
5. If X is true, what prior assumptions and values will I have to discard? Am I willing to do so?
6. What kind of signal-to-noise ratio can I expect due to uncertainties when calculating the above in practice?Let me try to clarify: I believe in lots of things, but I'm ready to change that belief when presented with compelling evidence. A person of faith believe things and that belief is not going to change despite plenty of evidence.
See, I used the same word but it meant something else. This whole exchange is about the false equivocation of science and religion; (good) science embraces the notion of falsification, because it wants to "believe" in whatever truth presents itself.
This distinction is paramount, because religious fundamentalists believe that their faith trumps science. And yes, there's a bitter irony in the wording I just used.
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'" - Asimov, 1980
I know of a professor at one university that had grants frozen due to being flagged as "woke" gender discourse. His lab researches...(wait for it)... immunotherapy treatments for breast cancer in women.