Don't Trust Science?

At Facebook they analyzed everyone's status updates and arrived at the conclusion that there is one day all year when Facebookers are happiest. Christmas.

Data crunchers in other labs have revealed that if you live in Vermont you will live longer than if you live in New York.

Science interprets stuff like that and makes it really useful. ("Honey, call the movers - we're going to Burlington on Christmas.")

Okay, so what if a doctor told you that getting a vaccination against swine flu would be good? Would you get the shot?

Guess what -- according to a University of Michigan poll, 60 percent of parents surveyed said they do not plan to vaccinate their children against H1N1. Many were worried about the vaccine's side effects. People believe that getting the shot might make you more likely to get sick. Bill Maher told his 60,000 Twitter followers, "If u get a swine flu shot ur an idiot." Even the popular Dr. Mercola is against the shots.

The news is bad for flu vaccinations and it's even worse for others. Some parents, including Jenny McCarthy, believe that having your children vaccinated against measles might make it more likely that they'll be diagnosed with autism. Fewer people, therefore, will take the good advice of their doctors and get a vaccination that might help their children and society at large.

People don't trust science like they used to. A Pew Research Center poll says that only 27 percent of Americans think our greatest achievements are in science - down from 47 percent a decade ago. One explanation is that the days of Big Science - landing on the Moon, inventing the transistor - seem far away. Science is routine now. We expect our smart phones to do the laundry and make photocopies.

Even the innocuous Bill Nye the Science Guy is making people mad. A story appeared on Rainn Wilson's website about the time Nye was giving a science talk in Waco, Texas:

He cited Genesis 1:16, which reads: "God made two great lights--the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars." Nye stated that the lesser light in the aforementioned quote was not technically a light, but a reflector, as in it reflects the sun's light. The God-fearing folks of Waco were furious. One woman shouted, "We believe in God," and proceeded to usher out her three children.

Just because your doctor says to get a flu shot doesn't mean you have to get one. I'm not getting one. Just because NASA says we should go to Mars doesn't make it a good idea. There are a few old bosses I'd like to send to Mars, believe me, but I'd rather we spend the money on solar power and electric cars. It's good to question science and medicine.

In the void brought about by all that questioning, however, sometimes you encounter ignorance. Not good. My fear of getting a flu shot comes mostly from ignorance - I admit it, and by not trusting science we could be creating an epidemic of ignorance worse than the flu.

Follow Lee Schneider on Twitter: www.twitter.com/docuguy

Comments

[MerhabaAbi]

Geo-synchronis orbit gives us cell phones and satellite TV. This internet is pretty damn nice. I like science a lot.

[JGatsby]

Mr. Schneider, good column but I disagree just a bit. To me the distrust around things like vaccinations is really a distrust of the corporate world. People believe that large pharmaceutical companies are more interested in profits than health, and frankly I agree with them. There have been plenty of cases in the recent past where big pharma proclaimed something safe when it really wasn't. I think the tragedy is that people blur this very healthy skepticism about corporations with a skepticism about science in general which is a shame since actual science which is objective, peer reviewed, repeatable, is exactly what we need to keep pharma and other corporations from doing more damage to us and the environment in the future.

[Lee Schneider - Huffpost Blogger]

I agree with that - the public distrust of the pharma companies - a well founded distrust as you say - has shaken public trust of science. The only way to correct this damage is to re-connect people with science in a genuine way. That's not going to happen through the pharma companies - too much self interest there. Thanks for commenting!

[PlaceboStudman]

The problem boils down simply to the phrase "exact science". This is a bit of an oxymoron. There is really nothing exact about science. There may be a narrow parameter around which a certain phenomena is measured, but it is never exact.

Even the mathematical Pi 3.14159 goes on seemingly infinitely. One guy was able to calculate it by memory to 22,000 digits

So, in every medical advancement, every technical advancement, there is no absolute "on/off" switch, science works on a dimmer, that goes up and down. Our knowledge of science ebbs and flows, and as our knowledge of it ebbs and flows, our trust in it will ebb and flow

Even Stephen Hawking has had to recant one of his earlier theories on black holes from 30 years ago. That should say something!

[JGatsby]

"Even the mathematical Pi 3.14159 goes on seemingly infinitely"
Just a clarification, Pi doesn't SEEM to go on infinitely it DOES go on infinitely. Its what is known as an irrational number. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_number

[PlaceboStudman]

Okay I stand corrected then

Thanks

[cable1977]

"science works on a dimmer, that goes up and down."

What does that mean exactly? Science alters its ideas based on new information. But that alteration never results in a loss of knowledge, only an enhancement of understanding. No scientist will ever tell you that we know everything about everything. Our best understanding is based on the available data at the time. As new data is derived and observed, new conclusions can be drawn. But we won't be going back to a time when we think the Earth is flat or the sun revolves around the Earth.

"Even Stephen Hawking has had to recant one of his earlier theories on black holes from 30 years ago. That should say something!"

Yes, it means that science works. That the scientifc method is a self-correcting system based on acquiring new information, creating new hypotheses, and testing them.