Does anyone else feel like 90% of the population is stupid?
Does anyone else feel like 90% of the population is stupid?
To clarify here, I don't feel like I'm significantly smarter than most people, but I feel like people have a hard time doing any sort of thinking about stuff. Especially when it comes to verifying "facts."
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So our brains were crafted to intake "reality" at a specific speed and quality. We can't see things at the atomic, much less quantum reality, nor understand the massive scale of the planet, much less the universe. Most "facts" are more beliefs from what others have suggested to be, than individually researched facts. Even our scientific method is a bit wanting in this area, since if we hear X, how can we prove X? We just need to take other's word that they did the correct process, didn't lie during any steps, didn't have any bad data unknowingly, especially in a culture where reproducibility is not a high priority so most scientific papers are not thoroughly tested and retested
That's roughly our skeletal social structure around "facts", and we're heading face first into a world of deep fakes and misinformation, to an extent never seen before in humanity. So maybe we should all extend each other a bit more patience and kindly help each other through these uncertain times
Even our scientific method is a bit wanting in this area, since if we hear X, how can we prove X?
by looking at their lab notes and repeating their experiment and seeing if we can make the same observations. if they lied about their process (see the guy that claimed he made a room temp superconductor...) they get caught out.
I think you thoroughly misunderstand the process involved. yeah, there's more emphasis on being first... but no... there's definitely still verification. Oh. and. yes. we can image atoms.
Yeah, I'd second this. The scientific method is very thorough.
So thinking on this more, there are many studies that are impossible to replicate, either due to time, money, or team size. Think about weather studies, no human lives long enough, so we have to push the belief back on the original data being accurate. Human studies that span millions of people are also hard for small teams or individuals to replicate. Also hard to have a particle accelerator for most people, so we have to trust the accelerators function properly, the data collected is not malformed and the interpretations are also correct (the last bit is what we could possibly double check if we had direct access)
I love the scientific method as well, but I think we still have some limits. Even if we had infinite time, but without infinite resources we might not be able to replicate everything "scientifically proven" (and even then, due to space time curvature, it might not be possible if infinite time and infinite resources had a fixed physical point, but that is probably Einsteinian philosophy)
Also, please prove me wrong. I'd rather believe the scientific method was 100% true, no joking.
Agreed, science is essentially set up as a competition such that disproving important things is also rewarded; reproducibility comes up more for niche fields
Totally agree that most of the tools are there, but how many trials have you personally duplicated? The average person?
That doesn't make the scientific method wrong. If someone isn't following the scientific method, that's on them, not the science.
You're right that science doesn't ever really prove anything per se. The best it can do is come up with a useful model that we can use to make predictions. The neat part is that this is extremely practical. You can take prediction X and apply it in the real world, so you don't have to take someone at face value. For example, you know the theory of electromagnetism is more or less accurate because we have phones that extensively use those principles. And if that isn't sufficient evidence, the present year is literally the best year ever for you to most easily test the theory yourself.