{"id":453,"date":"2014-09-19T12:50:39","date_gmt":"2014-09-19T18:50:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/?p=453"},"modified":"2014-09-19T12:55:48","modified_gmt":"2014-09-19T18:55:48","slug":"science-proves-me-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/science-proves-me-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Science Proves Me Right!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;ve all heard countering claims before, about just about any topic you can think of. Eventually someone trots out &#8220;scientific evidence&#8221; that bolsters their claim\u2014whatever that claim may be\u2014in order to win rhetorical points and, by chance, converts to their cause.<!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This scientific study indicates that global warming is happening faster than we thought. Here&#8217;s another study that demonstrates it is all hocus-pocus and a liberal conspiracy.<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;ve just read a study that says this economic policy is good for the country. It counters your study that supposedly demonstrates that a higher minimum wage will make us all happier and better off.<\/li>\n<li>This scientific study proves that religion is bunkum. Or that Catholics are hypocrites. Or that Joseph Smith was a fraud. Or that Hindus understand life and death.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/scientist-on-simpson.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-456\" alt=\"scientist-on-simpson\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/scientist-on-simpson-300x300.gif\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/scientist-on-simpson-300x300.gif 300w, http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/scientist-on-simpson-150x150.gif 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Pick your topic; it doesn&#8217;t really matter. The competing claims to scientific certitude and competing confusion happen because we ultimately don&#8217;t understand science, it&#8217;s place in society, and, well, exactly what it really <i>is<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>In a fascinating article in <em>The Week<\/em>, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry examines &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/theweek.com\/article\/index\/268360\/how-our-botched-understanding-of-science-ruins-everything\" target=\"_blank\">How our botched understanding of &#8216;science&#8217; ruins everything.<\/a>&#8221; It is well worth a read by those who think that science offers the surest path to Truth (with a capital T) and eventual human bliss.<\/p>\n<p>In Gobry&#8217;s words, &#8220;we live in an astonishingly unscientific and anti-scientific society.&#8221; It doesn&#8217;t really matter how educated you are\u2014we all do it badly. And wrong.<\/p>\n<p>The next time someone trots out some study that claims a scientific basis or when you are tempted to trot out your own, think again.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/DataScientistJobDescriptions.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-457\" alt=\"DataScientistJobDescriptions\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/DataScientistJobDescriptions-300x158.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"158\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/DataScientistJobDescriptions-300x158.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/DataScientistJobDescriptions-665x351.jpg 665w, http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/DataScientistJobDescriptions.jpg 959w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;ve all heard countering claims before, about just about any topic you can think of. Eventually someone trots out &#8220;scientific evidence&#8221; that bolsters their claim\u2014whatever that claim may be\u2014in order to win rhetorical points and, by chance, converts to their cause.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":459,"href":"http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions\/459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allenwyatt.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}