[Bobboau]

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/survey-shows-scientists-public-odds-over-climate-gmos-more-n296231

 

[Dragon]

Unsurprising. Scientists not only know facts, but also the reasons (or at least, a good part of the reasons) for why the facts are the way they are. The general public, on the other hand, often doesn't bother with finding that out. There are some things that "seem plausible" until you get your hands on hard data and understand the maths involved. Then, it quickly becomes obvious why the popular view is bollocks.

[Klaustrophobia]

Missing from the article: their definition of 'scientist.'   

[karajorma]

It did say "U.S.-based members of the science association" and I don't know if lay people can be members of that or if you have to actually have to be an actual scientist.

If they are actually people with a degree in a science I'm impressed you can find 2% of scientists who say humans didn't evolve. If you can have someone go through all the work you have to do in order to become a scientist and still believe bull**** like that then it's not exactly surprising that people who haven't received proper scientific training believe bull**** too.

[Bobboau]

surprised it's not higher, there are a lot of chemists, and **** even Francis Collins leader of the ****ing human genome project was a creationist, so yeah, does not shock me at all.

[pecenipicek]

this thing should be taken with a gigantic grain of salt. we are talking 5750 people talked to for the purposes of the poll and it says it was 3,748 "U.S.-based members of the science association"

unless my english is broken, member of the science association !== scientist

[karajorma]

surprised it's not higher, there are a lot of chemists, and **** even Francis Collins leader of the ****ing human genome project was a creationist, so yeah, does not shock me at all.

I've never understood how a chemist can have problems believing in evolution. Given how often I saw a reaction go tits up for no understandable reason they should be the biggest believers in not only evolution but also abiogenesis, which is the harder of the two concepts to understand.

[Luis Dias]

Francis Collins is most definitely not a creationist, that is a giant slander on him. He's a firm believer in Evolution, but he's also a firm believer in Christianity. There are plenty like him.

e: I mean, if Collins was a creationist, that would be a massive boon for the Creationist movement. You don't see them parading his name do you? Well, make your own conclusions over that one.

[Lorric]

I think it could be interesting for the forum to answer the questions. I'll start.

Safe to eat genetically modified foods? I would say yes with a nod to MP-Ryan, I remember the talk he and I had about GM food.

Favour use of animals in research? Depends on the research. For medicines and anything else important to living, I'd say yes. So girls can pretty themselves up with new makeup, no.

Safe to eat foods grown with pesticides, I'd say yes, broadly speaking.

Humans have evolved over time, yes.

Childhood vaccines such as MMR should be required, first impulse is to say yes, but really this should be something there shouldn't need to be a mandate for. It should be something everyone wants to do. And the problem with there being people on the fence or thinking it's a bad thing is if they are forced into doing it, then that can kind of make them think it's even more of a bad thing if they have to force you to do it. If I have to answer yes or no, I'll answer yes, but I would hope there would be no need to force such a thing if people were just educated enough to understand that it's the right thing to do. That still leaves your faith healers though even if you get rid of those fearing things like it causing autism or causing the very disease it's supposed to prevent.

Climate change is mostly due to human activity, yes.

Growing World population will be a major problem, yes, it will eventually if it keeps growing.

Favor building more nuclear power plants, I'd say only if renewable energy sources aren't going to cut it. I don't really have a strong opinion on it, but just one nuclear disaster does so much damage, ideally we would not have to rely on nuclear power.

Favor more offshore drilling, no opinion.

Astronauts essential for future of US Space program. I'm guessing this means astronauts vs robots going on missions? I don't really know, and neither do the public or the scientists judging by the 47-59 split. Right now a human is going to be more effective and versatile than any robot, but that could change. Especially in terms of sending a robot where a human, even in a spacesuit, can't go. Unless I have not understood the question, I don't see why we have to choose. Robots and astronauts both have their place.

Increased use of bioengineered fuel, yes, if we can.

Increased use of fracking, I don't have the facts to form an opinion on this. I see it in the news and know it's a controversial thing, but I don't know why.

Space station has been a good investment for the US, I don't have the facts for this either.

[The E]

Francis Collins is most definitely not a creationist, that is a giant slander on him. He's a firm believer in Evolution, but he's also a firm believer in Christianity. There are plenty like him.

e: I mean, if Collins was a creationist, that would be a massive boon for the Creationist movement. You don't see them parading his name do you? Well, make your own conclusions over that one.

Yeah, Collins' view is more about evolution being the tool God uses to shape life. Which is a perfectly respectable position to take.

[Mr. Vega]

It did say "U.S.-based members of the science association" and I don't know if lay people can be members of that or if you have to actually have to be an actual scientist.

If they are actually people with a degree in a science I'm impressed you can find 2% of scientists who say humans didn't evolve. If you can have someone go through all the work you have to do in order to become a scientist and still believe bull**** like that then it's not exactly surprising that people who haven't received proper scientific training believe bull**** too.

In any circumstance some people just end up taking contrary opinions. Sometimes that trait of human nature is very useful to the species, sometimes it's not. I wouldn't fret too much about 2 percent, certainly not compared to how collective decisions actually get made.

[Dragon]

Well, that, or they're fluorine chemists. Those need to either not believe in evolution, or be determined not to let it deter them.

[Klaustrophobia]

Or maybe it's just everyone doesn't have a completely polar view of the popular "you're stupid and a worthless human being if you do/don't believe ___" topics.  Science is no place for smugly superior attitudes.

[watsisname]

The "you're stupid and worthless, etc" part is certainly not helpful to anyone, but there is also no belief involved in whether or not you hold a scientific idea as being true or not.  Science is evidence based, not belief.  So if someone does not think things like evolution, the Big Bang, ~4.5GY old Earth and ~13.8GY universe, global warming, etc, are true, then they are simply wrong.  It is not a matter of opinion.

[karajorma]

It's so ridiculously easy for confirmation bias to slip into any science you do that you have to be sure you're dealing with someone who will take the necessary steps against that. Being a YEC is a huge black mark against that. If someone is willing to completely disregard all contrary evidence in one aspect of science, there's a good chance they'll do it elsewhere.

[watsisname]

To be fair, I think the majority of YEC's have been presented with it for most of their life and from an early age, and they really haven't had adequate exposure to geology, astronomy, etc to be able to understand them.  Even worse, they're usually presented with misconceptions or even outright lies about what these fields actually say, so it's no wonder why they think they are wrong.  (How many times have you been in a conversation with a YEC and get asked absurd questions like "if humans evolved from apes why are there still apes?" or "how did everything come from nothing in the Big Bang?")?

Basically I guess I'm saying most YEC's aren't this way because they're deliberately ignorant, but rather that they just don't have the foundations and tools necessary to properly compare and contrast secular science against YEC and see which one more correctly describes reality.

[karajorma]

I know for the majority of lay-YEC's that is true, but if you are a scientist, you have had access to that sort of thing and you almost certainly have been exposed to the truth. There comes a point where it really becomes a case of sticking your fingers in your ears and refusing to listen. And I think that by the time you've gotten a degree in a science, you've long passed that point.

"if humans evolved from apes why are there still apes?"

I always ask them "If orange juice comes from oranges, why are there still oranges?" in response so they realise how badly flawed that question is.

[Dragon]

"how did everything come from nothing in the Big Bang?"

This one is actually a good question, though. One that the theory guys are currently working hard to answer. Another fallacy most "anti-science" people fall into is thinking that scientists either know everything or nothing about any given subject. You either posses deep knowledge of all mysteries of the universe, or everything you say is wrong. "I don't know (yet)" is a perfectly valid state for a scientific problem to be in, and doesn't invalidate the rest of our knowledge about it.

Indeed, I suppose that's why some find creationism and such comforting. In those approaches, we'd live in a world with much less unknowns, which some people could find preferable to (still mostly unexplored) reality. Really, one thing studying a science makes you realize is how little about the universe we actually know (and matter in it). A universe that existed for a long, but imaginable amount of time, ran by an old human with a beard sitting in the clouds, is not only much easier to grasp, but also seems much less unpredictable. While fear of unknown and uncertainty is something you won't often find in a scientists, perhaps it is possible to work in a scientific field (though likely one from the "soft" side) and still find a predictable, human-centric world preferable.

[Bobboau]

I find it interesting that the only points anyone on this forum decided to take issue with were evolution and global warming (to a much less effect). no one here seems to want to badmouth the people who disagree with the scientists about GMOs, animal testing, pesticides (all three of these have a WIDER gap than evolution BTW), and nuclear power. I agree evolution deniers are idiots but so are all the rest of these people.

[Lorric]

I find it interesting that the only points anyone on this forum decided to take issue with were evolution and global warming (to a much less effect). no one here seems to want to badmouth the people who disagree with the scientists about GMOs, animal testing, pesticides (all three of these have a WIDER gap than evolution BTW), and nuclear power. I agree evolution deniers are idiots but so are all the rest of these people.

I think you go too far calling all these people idiots. How are we going to discuss the issues properly if those on the other side are dismissed as idiots? I wanted to see other points of view, which is why I threw my hat into the ring first and answered the questions.

And I'd say there's a reasonable case for people not being idiots in every case. Evolution. I really don't get it why Evolution is held up as this great litmus test of intelligence when it really has no impact on your everyday existence or capability to actually do anything short of actually working in a position directly related to evolution whether you believe in Evolution or not. Where I came from while certainly interesting is not particularly important to me, especially when put next to the question of what I'm going to do while I'm here. The thing is, since Evolution is really not relevant to your ability to live your life, I can see why people would either not deem it important to know, or default to the seemingly simpler explanation and scoff at the notion that we came from apes. Also, while Evolution was well taught to me here in England in the schools, I know how much of a contentious issue this is over in the USA where the survey was done, and how inconsistent schooling in the subject is.

Global Warming, the evidence is there that it is a thing, the receding of the polar ice caps testifies to it. But again, it's not something that's going to change your everyday existence, and many people won't have the time or energy to go looking into something that is simply not relevant to their daily lives. And they'll look at the evidence around them and see no change and dismiss it as scaremongering.

GM food. I myself am a very "if it isn't broken don't fix it" kind of person, and it's well documented the chaos and destruction mankind has caused when messing with ecosystems so I can't blame people for being cautious about this. For letting others be the guinea pigs. This also leads into pesticides. I said yes for pesticides, but based more on my faith in the high standards we have here in the UK when it comes to food that nothing dangerous is going to get through. Some pesticides are harmful, I'm just confident none of them are going to find their way onto my food. I don't care enough to read labels, but given a straight choice, I would always take organic.

Animal testing is the biggest of them all. I will never take issue with animal testing in the interests of the survival of the human race. And advancing the sciences would fall under that as well. But I regard it as a necessary evil. Just think how you'd feel if some aliens came along and scooped you up. "Oh, we're going to inject you with a lethal dose of this disease, and you're going to die slowly and screaming with us watching and recording every detail of it, but it's not for our sick pleasure or anything, your death will be helping us to find a cure." Animal testing is something I want to know is being tightly regulated to minimise the suffering of the creatures involved as much as possible, and would hope that it is done only when there is no other way. Some people don't want this suffering to take place in their name, and I can perfectly understand that.