Why Trust Science? Quotes

“facsimile science. (By this term I mean materials that carry the accoutrements of science—including in some cases peer review—but fail to adhere to accepted scientific standards such as methodological naturalism, complete and open reporting of data, and the willingness to revise assumptions in the light of data.)49 This is the problem of for-profit and predatory conferences and journals.”
― Naomi Oreskes, Why Trust Science?

“The public cares little about science, except insofar as its conclusions can be made to intervene in behalf of some moral, religious or social controversy.”
― Naomi Oreskes, Why Trust Science?

“The problem is that new technology has sped up the process of science. We hoped that technology would make science more efficient. But instead, science is either operating incredibly inefficiently or publishing a vast majority of findings that are false.”
― Naomi Oreskes, Why Trust Science?

“The dichotomy of man versus environment, or jobs versus environment, or prosperity versus environment, is a dangerous fiction constructed to justify greed. It cynically warrants destruction in the name of the false prophet of progress. That is what I believe.”
― Naomi Oreskes, Why Trust Science?

“The tobacco, processed food, and chemical industries face an essential conflict of interest when discussing scientific results that bear on the safety, efficacy, or healthfulness of their products.”
― Naomi Oreskes, Why Trust Science?

“What are we to do at any given moment, when we cannot say which of our current claims will be sustained and which will be rejected? This is one of the central questions that I have raised. Because we cannot know which of current claims will be sustained, the best we can do is to consider the weight of scientific evidence, the fulcrum of scientific opinion, and the trajectory of scientific knowledge. This is why consensus matters: If scientists are still debating a matter, then we may well be wise to “wait and see,” if conditions permit.26 If the available empirical evidence is thin, we may want to do more research. But the uncertainly of future scientific knowledge should not be used as an excuse for delay. As the epidemiologist Sir Austin Bradford Hill famously argued, “All scientific work is incomplete—whether it be observational or experimental. All scientific work is liable to be upset or modified by advancing knowledge. That does not confer upon us a freedom to ignore the knowledge we already have, or to postpone the action that it appears to demand at a given time.”27 At any given moment, it makes sense to make decisions on the information we have, and be prepared to alter our plans if future evidence warrants.”
― Naomi Oreskes, Why Trust Science?

“when the consequences of our scientific conclusions are non-epistemic—i.e., when they are moral, ethical, political, or economic—it is almost inevitable that our values will creep into our judgments of evidence.”
― Naomi Oreskes, Why Trust Science?

“Scientific training is intended to eliminate personal bias, but all the available evidence suggests that it does not and probably cannot. Diversity is a means to correct for the inevitability of personal bias. But what is the argument for demographic diversity? Isn’t the point really the need for perspectival diversity? The best answer to this question is that demographic diversity is a proxy for perspectival diversity, or, better, a means to that end. A group of white, middle-aged, heterosexual men may have diverse views on many issues, but they may also have blind spots, for example, with respect to gender or sexuality. Adding women or queer individuals to the group can be a way of introducing perspectives that would otherwise be missed.”
― Naomi Oreskes, Why Trust Science?

“What are the relative risks of ignoring scientific claims that turn out to be true versus acting on claims that turn out to be false?194 The risks of not flossing are real, but not inordinate. The risks of not acting on the scientific evidence of climate change are inordinate.”
― Naomi Oreskes, Why Trust Science?

“There were drunkards, gamblers, and lay-abouts among the wealthy, yet few eugenicists advocated sterilization of underperforming rich white men.”
― Naomi Oreskes, Why Trust Science?

“diversity can result in a more rigorous intellectual outcome by fostering critical interrogations that reveal embedded social prejudice.”
― Naomi Oreskes, Why Trust Science?

“A focus on one method above all others is a kind of fetish. These cases suggest that some of the historical examples of “science gone awry” arose from what I designate methodological fetishism. These are situations where investigators privileged a particular method and ignored or discounted evidence obtained by other methods, which, if heeded, could have changed their minds.”
― Naomi Oreskes, Why Trust Science?

“statistics, like any tool, don’t work well in all cases and conditions and like any tool can be used well or badly”
― Naomi Oreskes, Why Trust Science?

“How are we to evaluate the truth claims of science when we know that these claims may in the future be overturned? Elsewhere I have called this problem the instability of scientific truth.16 In the 1980s, philosopher Larry Laudan called it the pessimistic meta-induction of the history of science.17 He observed (as have many others) that the history of science offers many examples of scientific “truths” that were later viewed as misconceptions”
― Naomi Oreskes, Why Trust Science?

“Outside their domains of expertise, scientists may be no more well informed than ordinary people. Indeed, they may be less so as their intense training in one area can lead them to be undereducated in others.”
― Naomi Oreskes, Why Trust Science?

“assumptions are not perceived as such.”98 They are so embedded as to go unrecognized as assumptions, and this is most likely to occur in homogeneous communities.”
― Naomi Oreskes, Why Trust Science?