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Comment by ta8645 | Hacker News Reader

Until this is fixed, people need to stop saying "listen to The Science", in an attempt to convince others of a given viewpoint. Skeptical people already distrust our modern scientific institutions; not completely obviously, but definitely when they're cited as a cudgel. Continued articles like this should make everyone stop and wonder just how firm the supposed facts are, behind their own favoured opinions. We need a little more humility about which scientific facts are truly beyond reproach.

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We also need to listen to the science on things that are clearly established. The replication crisis is not something that affects almost anything in public debate. Evolution is well established science. Large parts of Climate Change are well established science. Etc.

And your evidence for that is what exactly? Since this replication problem is already known to appear in multiple disciplines, it's quite likely that the same misconduct is happening in other areas too. I think you're being a little too quick to hope that it doesn't affect those areas where you have a vested interest.

There is small but non-zero chance that any given paper on climate change is wrong or fraudulent, but it is absurd to go from that to claiming that we should disregard literally all scientific research that has ever been done. At a certain point you have to accept basic truths like that 2+2=4, or that the earth revolves around the sun, or that the composition of the atmosphere impacts our climate

Yea, evolution and climate change are pretty solid. But the projected models do no favor to climate science. Those are bogus. They've mostly been wrong in the past and will be mostly wrong again in the future. There are way too many variables and unknowns, and those accumulate the further out the model reaches.

"Believe science" is incredibly destructive to the entire field. It is quite literally turning science into a religion. Replacing the scientific method with "just believe what we say, how dare you question the orthodoxy". We're back to church and priests in all but name.

In the main people don't literally mean it that way. they're expressing belief int he validity of the scientific method, but the more they explaina nd justify the scientific method the more time consuming it is. When dealing with stupid people or obdurate trolls, the sincere adherent of the scientific method can be tricked into wasting a great deal of time by being peppered with questions that are foolish or posed in bad faith.

For social sciences, I generally disregard those published papers - most are just confirmation biased.

.... but each field is different. For those that are more quantitative, it's harder to deviate you conclusion from the data.

Bias is not binary, so it's a sliding scale between the hard sciences and the squishy ones.

No thank you. This "argument" is precisely where anti-science people come from.

You have to listen to the science, and also use the common sense that "this is as far as we know" and that knowledge today may change tomorrow.

Two comments below you use this "argument" to ask "evidence" for evolution and climate change. Big red flag.

You're free to treat it as unquestionable, but the fact remains there is ample evidence of our scientific process being deeply broken with a really bad incentive structure if nothing else.

If you think there is no incorrect science at all in regards to evolution and climate change you're no better than the zealots of any religion.

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