'I believe in Science'...bloody idiots. Rant
"I doubt THAT would work, but I see your point. A scientist could easily fool a lot of people, that is until he is proven wrong by every other scientist around."
It does work unfortunately. Apologies if this gets long and ranty - as a college researcher this is something I feel very strongly about and find frustrating.
In an ideal world, all scientific/pseudo-scientific information would be peer reviewed (other experts poke and prod to see if the methodology and data support the conclusions or if it's garbage basically). Peer reviewed papers are pretty solid and reliable as a result.
On the other hand, 99% of people don't read peer reviewed science - they get it from journalists. This means flat out bad science gets into popular view and the scientists who are experts in the field get flat out ignored when they try to say it's rubbish (the MMR vaccine scare is a good example. Dodgy claims of a single doctor ended up causing a lot of kids to not be vaccinated despite peer reviewed papers showing evidence that his claims had no basis.) 12 years later there are still people who think MMR causes autism and won't vaccinate their children from potentially deadly diseases as a result.
Speaking as a research engineer, I come across three related problems all the time when talking to people who are not trained in a scientific discipline about science.
The first is an overwhelming belief in "Science" rather than an understanding of what science actually is (For example, the biggest rule of science is if you can not devise an experiment to disprove a scientific theory, it's not a scientific theory regardless of trappings). It's just a set of rules meant to ensure you look at things rationally.
The second is what Feynman referred to as cargo cult science (ie. if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it must be a duck...even if it's a goose). Having the trappings of science (like a white coat, or 'experiments' for example) does not make it science. Once you open your eyes to it, you'll see this kind of window dressing everywhere (even down to perfume salesmen wearing white coats, misleading suggestive-but-not-saying-it statistics in advertising and so forth).
The third and worst one is 'the Man is keeping me down because I'm not part of his Science-club'. Scientists *don't care* what you use scientific techniques to prove. There's no secret Science Mason Masters declaring verbotten subjects - there's just a lot of people who don't seem to understand that proving their own pet belief has to satisfy the same criteria every other experiment, from cell cultures to linear accelerators to clinical trials, has to.
Hell, modern medicine is evidence based - if repeated clinical trials showed eating the arse off a dead badger cured 99% of aids patients - there'd be a dead badger wing in every hospital. They don't care if it's odd - they care that it works and not in a 'my uncle talked to a guy in a pub' anecdotal kind of way. So, knowing that, why do you think there's so many 'alternative medicines' out there?
So, yeah. Belief in Science is dangerous. Belief against science is dangerous. Perhaps we should just teach people what science actually is in school rather than have them mess around with test tubes for years and never actually learn what makes something science?
Hell, it takes 4 lines:
1. think about what you know about something. This can even include 'bob in the pub', if you like. It doesn't really matter as long as you consider everything available about it as well and weigh it logically.
2. if there's no theory adequately explaining that, try to create as simple a theory as you can to explain it. Write it down!
3. make a prediction that would follow from that theory and allow you to falsify it if it isn't true. If you can't make a falsifying prediction, your theory is bollocks not science.
4. Test: Perform a controlled experiment testing that prediction. If it agrees with your prediction, bonza - write it up and return to step 3. If it disagrees - write it up and return to step 2.
Congratulations - that's the entire scientific method in a nutshell.
Applying it to some popular pseudo-science and you'll see why it's important to know it if you're going to trust in Science! (Homeopathy fails on step 4. Creationism on step 3 for example. Relativity on the other hand walks pretty much unscathed through all 4).