Quote that is currently being shared a lot:
"If you are not a scientist, and you disagree with scientists about science, it’s actually not a disagreement. You're just wrong. Science is not truth. Science is finding the truth. When science changes its opinion, it didn't lie to you. It learned more."
While posted by many, it first seems to have been tweeted by mohamad safa.
Ironically, this is a curious mix of 2 forms of scientism, and is self contradictory post.
If science is not truth and science can change its opinion, how can one assert that disagreeing with scientists about science means one is wrong?
The quote is also ignorant of how science works. Anyone who approves of it should read some Kuhn, or about the effects of ideology on science (eg Lysenko or the 19th century version of race science)
Also, those who approve of this quote had better not be one of those people trying to bludgeon others into silence with "the science", who claims "the science" is "settled" and calls everyone who disagrees a "denier" - since science is not truth, can learn more and change its opinion, all that is patent nonsense.
Related:
If You Say 'Science Is Right,' You're Wrong
"Even a modest familiarity with the history of science offers many examples of matters that scientists thought they had resolved, only to discover that they needed to be reconsidered. Some familiar examples are Earth as the center of the universe, the absolute nature of time and space, the stability of continents, and the cause of infectious disease...
Some conclusions are so well established we may feel confident we won't be revisiting them. I can't think of anyone I know who thinks we will be questioning the laws of thermodynamics any time soon. But physicists at the start of the 20th century, just before the discovery of quantum mechanics and relativity, didn't think they were about to rethink their field's foundations, either...
History and philosophy have shown that the idea of a singular scientific method is, well, unscientific. In point of fact, the methods of science have varied between disciplines and across time. Many scientific practices, particularly statistical tests of significance, have been developed with the idea of avoiding wishful thinking and self-deception, but that hardly constitutes “the scientific method.” Scientists have bitterly argued about which methods are the best, and, as we all know, bitter arguments rarely get resolved.
In my view, the biggest mistake scientists make is to claim that this is all somehow simple and therefore to imply that anyone who doesn't get it is a dunce. Science is not simple, and neither is the natural world; therein lies the challenge of science communication."
Ironically, most of the people who believe wholeheartedly in the quote at the start of this post will likely disagree with the article I quoted, but they should take their own advice, since the author is "Naomi Oreskes is Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. A world-renowned geologist" - so they must accept that they are wrong about science.
