I would hardly call myself anti-science, but I (and I imagine many on this forum) get frustrated at bad science. Things like shampoo adverts, lottery number predictions.
So I can see how for, some people at least, statistics which measure the probability of you dying from COVID are lumped into the same category as the probability of England winning the World Cup. It seems like the whole this is made of arbitrary guesswork (though I realise it isn't, at least in the case of the former).
Then there is the problem of the media mis-interpreting science. So we have the never-ending compilation of headlines from "Chocolate/Coffee/Bacon is good/bad/irrelevant for your health". Again, these are much more about getting views than sharing information, but there's a consequence of sowing mistrust in science.
And then we just have people not quite understanding complex statistics. "Nate Silver predicts 90% chance of Biden winning election" seemed to be interpreted by many as "Nate Silver predicts Biden will get 90% of the vote". There's been loads of this around COVID stats. It confuses the hell out of me - I've found myself listening to the same episode of "More or Less" twice, in an attempt to really understand it. So I search for a simple explanation and stumble on someone giving a simplistic - but wildly wrong - interpretation, but I'm too stupid to realise it's wrong.
Finally, many reporting on science use it to justify their political views. So we have "climate change stats predict sea level will rise by x%" (science) followed by "therefore it is scientifically proven that we must spend $x billion" (politics). Clearly, the first is a different type of fact than the latter, but if you disbelieve the second you may find yourself doubting the first as well, because they're asserted by the same people. When the assertions are more subtle, this is really difficult.
As a Christian (more of the Benjamin Franklin variety than Joel Osteen), I find the trend to set up science as some kind of ultimate authority on everything to be just as troubling as those use The Bible for the same purpose. Ultimately, both of these rely on the same flawed human tendency to want simple answer to complex questions. As so many have said before me, science is about "what and how", religion is about "why", but the questions and answers are just as complex in both cases.
So I can see how for, some people at least, statistics which measure the probability of you dying from COVID are lumped into the same category as the probability of England winning the World Cup. It seems like the whole this is made of arbitrary guesswork (though I realise it isn't, at least in the case of the former).
Then there is the problem of the media mis-interpreting science. So we have the never-ending compilation of headlines from "Chocolate/Coffee/Bacon is good/bad/irrelevant for your health". Again, these are much more about getting views than sharing information, but there's a consequence of sowing mistrust in science.
And then we just have people not quite understanding complex statistics. "Nate Silver predicts 90% chance of Biden winning election" seemed to be interpreted by many as "Nate Silver predicts Biden will get 90% of the vote". There's been loads of this around COVID stats. It confuses the hell out of me - I've found myself listening to the same episode of "More or Less" twice, in an attempt to really understand it. So I search for a simple explanation and stumble on someone giving a simplistic - but wildly wrong - interpretation, but I'm too stupid to realise it's wrong.
Finally, many reporting on science use it to justify their political views. So we have "climate change stats predict sea level will rise by x%" (science) followed by "therefore it is scientifically proven that we must spend $x billion" (politics). Clearly, the first is a different type of fact than the latter, but if you disbelieve the second you may find yourself doubting the first as well, because they're asserted by the same people. When the assertions are more subtle, this is really difficult.
As a Christian (more of the Benjamin Franklin variety than Joel Osteen), I find the trend to set up science as some kind of ultimate authority on everything to be just as troubling as those use The Bible for the same purpose. Ultimately, both of these rely on the same flawed human tendency to want simple answer to complex questions. As so many have said before me, science is about "what and how", religion is about "why", but the questions and answers are just as complex in both cases.