So far as I know there’s been no big news that should’ve caused everyone to revise their opinions about the whole science establishment. The numbers of people who “disagree” with the idea that scientists are trustworthy seems little changed.
Seems to me that this could be reflecting this year’s mood being one in which people are less inclined to “strongly agree” with things in general, rather than any specific opinion about scientists. Maybe they should add some kind of control question to test that.
Maybe not exactly big news, but ever since the internet became a thing, information started to flow a lot faster and farther than before. You may have a point, and this article is more an opinion than anything but I don’t think it’s unreasonable. Here’s why:
Scientists and academics are used to think and develop concepts and ideas for decades. As individuals, each usually has a very firm stance on one particular issue, but as a collective, the sciences will keep several contradictory hypothesis in consideration for a long time until there is enough evidence to cement a theory. And even then, there’s always some whacky theory floating around.
The general public on the other hand, isn’t used to this kind of nuance. Most pre internet people see " scientific publication = truthful fact " as this is more or less what they grew up with. They didn’t stay in school long enough to see their textbooks get updated, had no easy access to new research contradicting the mainstream.
Today there is an overabundance of information floating around, especially online, and tons of articles based off on scientific papers which most people take for gospel without any understanding of how the scientific body of knowledge grows over time. Add to that the noise caused by pseudoexperts and conspiracy theorists and… would you like a cup of Ivermectin?
A zoom in into the complexities of some scientific (or, sometimes, other debates) revealed oftens that both sides has had their arguments, their reasons. In the historical treatement of this or in the cause of school stuff, it appears that one side has a self evident truth and the other side simply doesn’t get it.
For instance, the The Great Debate aka Shapley-Curtis-Debatte. Everyone at least vaguely familiar with astononmy knows that the universe is much greater than one galaxy. But back then, there were mixed evidence. And the reasons one side won is often complicated, and involved some theoretical assumption you could doubt. Who knows about the theories about standard lights and all that stuff? It’s not that difference from today.
The power of science, in my opinion, is the acceptance of doubt. You are not forced to believe but think about ways to test.
I’m inclined to lay cause for the decline on AI (not so much AI scientists IMO, but it’s illuminating to see how badly they’re perceived), people are rightfully distrustful of hallucinating LLMs, and often have personal experience of how easy it is to get one to spit out a plausible sounding argument for whatever you want. I suspect you’d find a similar or greater decline for media and journalism, for the same reasons, at least, so I hope, although echo chambers probably mitigate the effect.
The ability to tell ChatGPT to ‘Write me an article scientifically proving X’, e.g. vaccines are harmful, the sky is red, the earth is flat, and have it diligently come up with some reasonable sounding codswallop is genuinely scary. Add to that the ongoing removal of critical thinking from the educational landscape, and you’ve got vast swathes of the population who know deep down that something is wrong with a lot of what they hear, but can’t put their finger on exactly what. Seems like a recipe for anxiety.
Honestly, for many people, it was a hugh discovery that even the experts can be wrong about something. I know, I got a lot of downvotes.
