Another case in point - I struggle to even read articles to do with evolution or abiogenesis, because I think they are not being scientific enough. They jump to too many conclusions about the overall structure of the question at hand - not because I think I know the correct structure, but because the structure is never questioned, and is almost certainly wrong.
I don't want to necessarily get into specific examples, but it is quite frustrating to feel like I am the only one who sees a problem. Peer pressure, blindly following authority, parsimony, groupthink, loyalty to country, loyalty to like-minded individuals, inability to overturn a precedent, fitting new data into an old way of thinking, rather than letting new information speak for itself and allow new forms of thinking to shine through.
5 comments:
I also see the problem. I was thinking about this very thing lying awake this morning. I have felt this way about the Western Press since approximately the Al-Aqsa Intifadeh, and the feeling has been strongly reinforced year by year. I also went off New Scientist at about the same time because of their credulous, breathless, politicised take on nearly everything.
Sometimes I am comforted by the thought, and sometimes just depressed more, to realise that it has ever been thus. :(
Yes. I think the Western press has never been as free as we'd imagined in our youth. However, until a few years ago, it was still freer than Russia's press. Now I think western press is about as free as the RMP's. Instead of the press in restricted countries becoming freer, Western press has become less free to match and worse. I am starting to believe almost all left wing conspiracy theories regarding the press, against my instincts. In scientific journals I am ignoring everything that cannot be verified experimentally, which is virtually everything.
I believe almost all *right-wing* conspiracy theories about the press, so luckily there's no chance of us forming our own groupthink bubble. :P
As I've said before, I think that the politicisation of Anthropogenic Global Warming in particular will do - probably already is doing - severe, systemic, long-term damage to the public perception of science.
This article from the economist, for instance, I find to be starting from a basis of propaganda, rather than fact.
I am convinced that Russia is following a strategy of humanitarian relief, combined with a very defensive posture and gaining the support and trust of the Ukranians under its influence. It calculates that strategy will win - as it seems to be.
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