{"id":58066,"date":"2021-05-28T10:52:35","date_gmt":"2021-05-28T15:52:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=58066"},"modified":"2021-05-28T10:52:35","modified_gmt":"2021-05-28T15:52:35","slug":"stop-trusting-the-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=58066","title":{"rendered":"Stop Trusting the Experts!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Stop Trusting the Experts!<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Every now and then, I\u2019m lucky enough to meet someone who \u201cfollows the science.\u201d I count on such folks to teach me some science that I do not yet know. Being scientifically literate, I like to start by asking them some basic questions:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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How are key data terms defined? How are data collected and reported? What theories guided the design of the models that process the raw data? What studies validated the models? How sensitive are the models to variations in inputs? How well do the models perform using historical data? Do the models have a track record at prediction \u2014 and if so, how well have they done? What alternative hypotheses were considered? How were the hypotheses tested?<\/p>\n

Anyone surprised by such questions can\u2019t plausibly claim to understand the science, much less to follow it. Most likely, they\u2019ve confused \u201cthe science\u201d with a selected scientist, a claimed scientific consensus, or the scientific establishment. Or, worse, partisan politics masquerading as science.<\/p>\n

The confusion stems from a common misconception \u2014 an improper line many people draw between scientists working for corporations and scientists working for universities or government agencies. While most people understand that corporate scientists tend to support positions that serve corporate interests, many have been fooled into believing that academic and government scientists serve objective scientific truth.<\/p>\n

Employment incentives are important to all scientists. The only difference is that it\u2019s easier for outsiders to guess what a corporation wants its scientists to say than it is to understand what drives career advancement in academia or government.<\/p>\n

With the absence of a bottom line or market feedback, success in academic or government science often flows to those most adept at flattering their more senior colleagues…<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stop Trusting the Experts! Every now and then, I\u2019m lucky enough to meet someone who \u201cfollows the science.\u201d I count on such folks to teach me some science that I do not yet know. Being scientifically literate, I like to start by asking them some basic questions: How are key data terms defined? How are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[31281,16783,14309,11998,705],"class_list":["post-58066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-bruce-abramson","tag-expertise","tag-objectivity","tag-real-clear-politics","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58066"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58067,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58066\/revisions\/58067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}