Are We Hard-Wired to Doubt Science?
Posted: February 1, 2011.
Print: New York Times
In researching Monday’s article about opposition to smart meters, I found myself once again facing a dilemma built into environmental reporting: how to evaluate whether claims of health effects caused by some environmental contaminant — chemicals, noise, radiation, whatever — are potentially valid? I turned, as usual, to the peer-reviewed science.
But some very intelligent people I interviewed had little use for the existing (if sparse) science. How, in a rational society, does one understand those who reject science, a common touchstone of what is real and verifiable?
...A recovering journalist, David Ropeik, who is an instructor at the Harvard University extension school and the author of a book, “How Risky Is It Really?” offers one explanation: Humans, he argues, are hard-wired to reject scientific conclusions that run counter to their instinctive belief that someone or something is out to get them.
Damnit, why is this so difficult. For 100s of thousands of years, humans have trusted those they know closely and distrusted those they do not know closely. Information falls into these categories - things we can intuit easily and things our close friends talk about vs things which are not easily intuited and information that comes from people who are not close friends of ours.
There is a natural (read biological) bias against the information which does not carry the added weighting factors that come with easily intuited information or information from close and trusted sources. Even scientists are subject to this without rigorous effort to be open minded and critical thinking.
In all things, distrust your gut instinct first. Explore, experiment, and learn - but temper that with the wisdom of those who have come before. It is silly to prove the earth is a spherical body, or that the universe if really big unless you’re doing so in a new way or in a way that makes understanding more intuitive.
Water is generally thought pure and purifying… but it’s anything but that. We need to understand that water is ALWAYS carrying stuff around in it. How much of what chemical is the concern. Science is about honestly observing and recording and experimenting. Nothing is impossible, just not yet possible.
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