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Comment by niggler | Hacker News Reader

I was going to write a response, but the following comment from the site summarizes my thoughts: "If Staple's ambition says a lot about science as a business, then the credulity of his reviewers and colleagues speaks volumes about science as a religion. The sacred trust people place in science and the scientific method is sadly misplaced. The awe evoked by science popularizers like Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson isn't all that different than the pomp and ceremony that surrounds the pope. And yet, it really should be the night sky that moves us, not the flattering self-portrait that science paints of ourselves and our intellects.

Simply put, science isn't all that different than other human endeavours wherein people compete for prizes. Stop putting scientists on a pedestal."

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Science holds its practitioners up to standards and sometimes finds them wanting. If we didn't have scandals then that would be alarming. For many, many years there were no sex abuse scandals in the Catholic church. In retrospect, was that a good sign?

I don't see any sign of scientists being placed on pedestals in the US. What I see in the US is rampant anti-intellectualism, a cynicism about intellectual rigor, and cherry picking findings because they agree with ideological preconceptions. We're all guilty of it to some extent, but there are now a significant number of Americans who simply will not listen to well-reasoned argument.

The comment you quote moves too easily from the scientific method to scientists. Yes, scientists are human, and some of them are flawed, valuing adulation more than anything. The scientific method seems to be pretty good at flushing these people out, judging from the steady stream of stories about fraud in science.

To complete the analogy about the awe attached to some science popularizers, the Catholic Church doesn't seem quite as good at self-correction. I can't think of another human institution that is.

Another powerful quote (this one from the article), especially taken in the secular atmosphere of Europe:

'“People think of scientists as monks in a monastery looking out for the truth,” [Staple] said. “People have lost faith in the church, but they haven’t lost faith in science. My behavior shows that science is not holy.”'

Please keep in mind the difference between science and social science.

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